MORUROA FILES: Investigation into French nuclear tests in the Pacific
Poisoned legacy
Leukemia, lymphoma, cancer of the thyroid, lung, breast, stomach … In Polynesia, the experience of French nuclear tests is written in the flesh and blood of the inhabitants. Strontium has eaten into bones, cesium has eaten away at muscles and genitals, iodine has seeped into the thyroid.
The story of this largely unknown health disaster began on July 2, 1966. On that day, the army carried out the Aldebaran fire, the first of the 193 tests fired from the nuclear atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa until 1996. The first , also, of a series of tests among the most contaminating in the history of the French nuclear program: the tests in the open air. Between 1966 and 1974, the military carried out 46 such explosions.
Disclose and Interprt, in collaboration with the Science & Global Security program at Princeton University (USA), investigated the consequences of atmospheric testing in French Polynesia for two years. With the help of thousands of declassified military documents, hundreds of hours of calculations and dozens of unpublished testimonies, this investigation demonstrates for the first time the extent of the radioactive fallout that struck the inhabitants of this vast territory as the ‘Europe.
According to our calculations, based on a scientific reassessment of the doses received, approximately 110,000 people were infected, almost the entire Polynesian population at the time. Modelling toxic clouds to support, we also unveil how the French authorities have concealed the true impact of nuclear testing on the health of Polynesians for more than fifty years.
On February 18, 2020, the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (Inserm) published, at the request of the Ministry of Defense, a report on “the health consequences of nuclear tests” in French Polynesia. According to this expertise, its authors felt that they could not “make a solid conclusion” to the existence of “links between the fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests and the occurrence of radiation-induced pathologies”. And the college of experts stressed the need to “refine the estimates of doses received by the local population and by civilian and military personnel”. This is precisely what we have endeavored to do in this investigation.
Why the World Needs a New UN Study on the Effects of Nuclear War
“Given that the United States relies on a strategy of nuclear deterrence, which seeks to obtain security by threatening nuclear war, it seems obvious that this country should want to fully understand the risks it is running.”
On the persistence of U.S. nuclear deterrence policy: bostonreview.net/articles/the-extortionists-doctrine/
“Nuclear-armed states do not run these risks alone. The rest of the world can be affected by nuclear war via radioactive fallout, environmental changes such as nuclear winter, and disruption of the global economic system. Almost any nuclear war would be a global problem.”
By Laura Grego, Union of Concerned Scientists | October 29 blog.ucsusa.org
Coming up for a vote in early November is a resolution advanced by the Ireland and New Zealand delegations to the United Nations (UN) to commission a critical new scientific study on the effects of nuclear war. The study, which would be the first under UN auspices in more than 30 years, would be run by an independent scientific panel of 21 members and would examine the physical effects and societal consequences of a nuclear war on local, regional, and planetary scales. It would be comprehensive in its scope, including the climate, environmental, and radiological effects of nuclear war and how these would impact public health, global social and economic systems, agriculture, and ecosystems over periods of days, weeks, and decades.
By Zia Mian, Scientific American | October 28 scientificamerican.com
At the United Nations, an effort is underway in the General Assembly to establish an international panel of scientists to assess, communicate and advance our current knowledge of the effects of nuclear war. The effort would lead to a more fully informed and inclusive global debate on how much and how little everyone—including the nuclear armed states themselves—actually know of the catastrophic large-scale long-term human, environmental, ecological, economic and societal impacts of using nuclear weapons. Ideally, the findings could build a basis for action toward the total elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide and secure a safer future for people and our planet.
Everyone, not just scientists and their respective professional societies, in all nations, including the nuclear-armed states and their allies, should speak in support of this effort to build a shared understanding of the risks posed by nuclear war plans and nuclear deterrence threats.
In September the U.N.’s member states overwhelmingly agreed on the Pact for the Future, which declares: “A nuclear war would visit devastation upon all humankind.” But it has been over 30 years since the last report by the U.N. on this threat.
BOSTON REVIEW: The Extortionist’s Doctrine
“Thus massive second strike—the key to deterrence defined as the practice of preventing nuclear war by discouraging a first strike—somersaults into the perceived position of a first strike.
‘The bar of deterrence,’ [former head of US Strategic Command] Butler writes, ‘ratchets higher, igniting yet another cycle of trepidation, worst-case assumptions and ever-mounting levels of destructive capability.'”
By Elaine Scarry, The Boston Review | October 2024 bostonreview.net
The key structure of the doctrine of nuclear deterrence is audible in the September 4, 2024, speech by U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Cara Abercrombie: “Any nuclear attack by the DPRK against the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime.” The doctrine, which the United States has embraced since the Cold War, aims to prevent an adversary from launching a nuclear weapon by assuring that any first strike will be followed by a retaliatory second strike, whose effects will equal or exceed the original damage and may eliminate the adversary altogether. This annihilating reflex of deterrence is equally audible in the quiet words of the Department of Defense in its web page on “America’s Nuclear Triad,” its sea-based, land-based, and air-based delivery platforms: “The triad, along with assigned forces, provide 24/7 deterrence to prevent catastrophic actions from our adversaries and they stand ready, if necessary, to deliver a decisive response, anywhere, anytime.”
Framed wholly as defensive and preventative (and from day to day, largely successful in deflecting our attention from the actual first use stance the country has had for nearly eighty years), deterrence would almost have the aura of peacekeeping, were it not the mental platform undergirding our fourteen Ohio-class submarines (each able to singlehandedly destroy one of Earth’s seven continents), four hundred land-based ICBMs, and sixty-six B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers.
Although the physical act of unbuilding the nuclear architecture is easily within reach—it would take at most four weeks to dismantle all the nuclear triggers throughout the world, a decisive because disabling first step—the mental architecture of deterrence is the major impediment to doing so.
Searchlight NM: Plutonium just had a bad day in court
In a major decision whose consequences are still being assessed, a federal judge declared that plutonium pit production — one ingredient in the U.S. government’s $1.5 trillion nuclear weapons expansion — has to be performed in accordance with the nation’s strongest environmental law
“…The court found that the agencies charged with reviving the nuclear weapons complex have not properly evaluated the perils that could come with turning out plutonium pits at two different sites, thousands of miles apart. For the plaintiffs in this case — which include Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition — Lewis’s decision to intervene is a milestone.”
“We’ve had a pretty significant victory here on the environmental front,” said Tom Clements, the director of Savannah River Site Watch. “Nonprofit public interest groups are able to hold the U.S. Department of Energy accountable.”
Over the past twenty-plus years, there have been four attempts by NNSA to expand pit production through the NEPA process. All failed. According to Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, this string of defeats could have led to the NNSA’s circumvention of the NEPA process during this round of planning for pit production. Adhering to the rules of the NEPA process, he added, “benefits both the public and the government.”
By , Searchlight New Mexico | October 17, 2024 searchlightnm.org
Most Americans don’t seem aware of it, but the United States is plunging into a new nuclear arms race. At the same time that China is ramping up its arsenal of nuclear weapons, Russia has become increasingly bellicose. After a long period of relative dormancy, the U.S. has embarked on its own monumental project to modernize everything in its arsenal — from bomb triggers to warheads to missile systems — at a cost, altogether, of at least $1.5 trillion.
Los Alamos National Laboratory plays a vital role as one of two sites set to manufacture plutonium “pits,” the main explosive element in every thermonuclear warhead. But as a recent court ruling makes clear, the rush to revive weapons production has pushed environmental considerations — from nuclear waste and increases in vehicular traffic to contamination of local waterways, air and vegetation — to the wayside.
OPINION: Nevada has already passed the test
“A return to explosive nuclear testing in the United States would almost certainly trigger a return to explosive nuclear testing in Russia, China and probably other nuclear-armed states.
…America’s nuclear veterans and local downwinders understand all too well the health risks of radiation exposure from above ground nuclear explosive testing conducted until 1963.”
By Ernest J. Moniz, The Nevada Independent | October 16, 2024 thenevadaindependent.com
Many Nevadans remember the days when the United States was driven by necessity to conduct explosive nuclear tests of America’s nuclear arsenal. By testing, we sought to prove the designs of our nuclear weapons and impress on any potential adversary the futility of striking America or our allies. Today, we are long past the point when explosive nuclear testing is required to ensure their effectiveness, and our adversaries well understand their power. Ignoring these essential facts would put us at peril.
Since the first nuclear weapon test explosion in New Mexico in 1945, the United States conducted more than 1,000 such tests. Nine hundred and twenty-eight of those, or 90 percent, have been conducted in Nevada, the last in 1992, more than 30 years ago.
Now, voices from outside Nevada are making the case for a resumption of nuclear explosive testing in the desert, just 65 miles from Las Vegas. That case is not justified by science or military necessity, especially when a resumption of U.S. nuclear testing could trigger an even more precarious nuclear arms race abroad and endanger the physical and economic health of Nevadans at home.
New Interactive Series from The New York Times: “The Price” of New U.S. Nuclear Weapons
The output at Rocky Flats, which at one point during the Cold War hit 1,000 pits per year, dwarfs the modern ambitions of Los Alamos. Still, the new production is expected to generate levels of radiological and hazardous waste that the lab has not experienced. This comes on top of the contamination already present, which the government estimates will cost some $7 billion to clean up.
“We’re endangering our community for an unnecessary arms race that puts us all at risk,” says Jay Coghlan, the executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a Santa Fe-based watchdog.
By W.J. Hennigan | Photographs by An-My Lê – THE NEW YORK TIMES October 10, 2024 nytimes.com
Opinion: America Is Updating Its Nuclear Weapons. The Price: $1.7 Trillion Over 30 Years.
Letter To the Editor in Response to the Article Above by Dr. Ira Helfand:
Re “The Staggering Cost of America’s Nuclear Gamble,” by W.J. Hennigan (Opinion, “At the Brink” series, Oct. 13):
Mr. Hennigan says, almost in passing, that “nuclear weapons do deter our adversaries.”
There is a lot to unpack in these six words. There certainly are situations in which one country’s nuclear weapons do deter its adversaries. Russia’s threats to use its nuclear weapons have clearly deterred the United States and NATO from doing more to support Ukraine.
But does deterrence guarantee that these weapons will not be used? Because a failure of deterrence will cause a catastrophe beyond reckoning.
A nuclear war between the United States and Russia could kill hundreds of millions of people in the first afternoon, and the ensuing climate disruption and famine could kill three-quarters of humanity over the next two years. Is there any conceivable benefit that can be derived from possessing these weapons that is worth running this terrible risk?
There have been many near misses already during the nuclear weapons era, crises where certain countries actually began preparations to launch nuclear weapons.
As former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara pointed out, we have not survived this far into the nuclear era because we knew what we were doing. Rather, as McNamara put it, “It was luck that prevented nuclear war.”
The idea that deterrence makes us safe is a dangerous myth. As our highest national security priority, we should be actively seeking a world without nuclear weapons. We don’t know if such an effort can succeed; we have never tried. We do know what will happen if deterrence fails.
Ira Helfand
Northampton, Mass.
The writer is a former president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which received the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.
Santa Fe County commissioners object to environmental finding on LANL power line
“‘This is sacred land. We have alternatives. There are other ways to do this,’ said Commissioner Camilla Bustamante. ‘I couldn’t be in more support of finding an alternative to taking a power line and putting a scar on something that is not equal to just any other physical location.'”
By Cormac Dodd, Santa Fe New Mexican | October 8, 2024 santafenewmexican.com
The Energy Department just made one plutonium pit. Making more is uncertain
Coinciding with NNSA’s announcement of the first diamond-stamped pit, a US District Court ruled that the Energy Department and the NNSA violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with pit production, requiring the agency to conduct a programmatic environmental impact assessment.
This was a victory for transparency and the community groups—among them, Savannah River Site Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs), and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition—who, for years, have been asking for such an assessment.
By Dylan Spaulding, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists | October 10 thebulletin.org
Two conflicting developments arose this month in US efforts to produce new plutonium pits for its nuclear weapons: The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced it had produced a warhead-ready pit—the explosive core of a nuclear weapon—for the first time in decades, and a federal court ruled that NNSA will be required to consider the cumulative environmental and health impacts of its pit production program.
Overshadowing these events is a vigorous debate over the necessity for new pits at all. Previous analyses have found that plutonium pits have viable lifespans well beyond the expected service life of the current stockpile, whereas production of pits for new weapons is part of a sweeping US nuclear modernization that raises concern over the future of arms control and any possibility for stockpile reductions at a time of deteriorating international relations.
Continue reading
Judge finds plutonium production plans violated environmental laws
Both sides of the case are ordered to present a joint plan to address violations by Oct. 25
One of the plaintiffs, Jay Coghlan, the executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico called that a “pretty large hurdle to overcome,” for both parties. It’s unclear what happens if the parties fail to present a joint solution.
Source NM | October 8 sourcenm.com
U.S. energy officials illegally neglected to study impacts to the environment in efforts to increase plutonium production for nuclear weapons in New Mexico and South Carolina, a federal judge has ruled.
South Carolina District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis sided with environmental, anti-nuclear proliferation and community groups last week who sued the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which oversees the nuclear weapons stockpile as part of the U.S. Department of Energy.
The U.S. is investing billions into restarting the manufacture of plutonium “pits,” the grapefruit-sized spheres developed for nuclear weapons. The federal government halted its manufacturing program at the Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado in 1989 after an FBI raid due to safety concerns and environmental crimes.
The stated goal has been to produce 80 pits per year starting in 2030, split between Savannah River facility proposed in South Carolina and at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The project has faced safety concerns and delays. The Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, found the NNSA had no comprehensive timeline or cost estimate for pit production, but estimates it’s in the tens of billions of dollars.
Community, environment and anti-nuclear groups brought the lawsuit in 2021, alleging that the NNSA failed to consider alternatives to its two-site proposal and violated the law by not reviewing or changing its last analysis from 2008, when it approved the decisions to move forward in 2020.
Continue reading
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Sites Violated Rules, Judge Finds
In a statement Jay Coghlan, the director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico and a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, said, “These agencies think they can proceed with their most expensive and complex project ever without required public analyses and credible cost estimates.”
By , Newsweek | October 4 newsweek.com
A federal judge ruled this week that some nuclear weapons sites in the U.S. do violate environmental regulations.
On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the National Nuclear Security Administration violated environmental regulations by failing to adequately assess the environmental impact of its plan to expand plutonium pit production at facilities in South Carolina and New Mexico.
The case involves a lawsuit that targeted a 2018 plan to establish two plutonium pit production sites—one at South Carolina’s Savannah River and the other at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Plaintiffs argued the plan was based on an outdated environmental impact study, which failed to properly assess the implications of simultaneous production at both locations. They also insisted the plan weakened safety and accountability measures for the multibillion-dollar nuclear weapons program and its associated waste disposal.
In the ruling on Thursday, Judge Mary Geiger Lewis said, “Defendants neglected to properly consider the combined effects of their two-site strategy and have failed to convince the court they gave thought to how those effects would affect the environment.”
‘Significant Victory’: Court Rules Planned Plutonium Pits for New Nukes Violate US Law
“Public scrutiny is especially important because the activities at issue here, by their very nature, result in the production of dangerous weapons and extensive amounts of toxic and radioactive waste,” a plaintiffs’ lawyer said.
By Olivia Rosane, CommonDreams | October 3 commondreams.com
In what advocates called a major win for frontline communities and the rule of law, a U.S. district court judge ruled on Monday that the federal government could not move forward with producing plutonium pits—”the heart and trigger of a nuclear bomb“—at two proposed sites in New Mexico and South Carolina.
Instead, Judge Mary Geiger Lewis agreed with a coalition of nonprofit community groups that the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to fully consider alternatives to producing the pits at New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory and South Carolina’s Savannah River Site (SRS). Now, the federal government must conduct a full environmental impact statement of how pit production would work at sites across the U.S.
“This is a significant victory that will ensure NEPA’s goal of public participation is satisfied,” attorney for the plaintiffs Ben Cunningham, of the South Carolina Environmental Law Project, said in a statement. “Public scrutiny is especially important because the activities at issue here, by their very nature, result in the production of dangerous weapons and extensive amounts of toxic and radioactive waste. I hope the public will seize the upcoming opportunity to review and comment on the federal agencies’ assessment.”
The Bulletin – Nowhere to hide: How a nuclear war would kill you — and almost everyone else.
“The impacts of nuclear war on agricultural food systems would have dire consequences for most humans who survive the war and its immediate effects.
The overall global consequences of nuclear war—including both short-term and long-term impacts—would be even more horrific causing hundreds of millions—even billions—of people to starve to death.”
By François Diaz-Maurin, Design by Thomas Gaulkin | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | October 20 thebulletin.org
This summer, the New York City Emergency Management department released a new public service announcement on nuclear preparedness, instructing New Yorkers about what to do during a nuclear attack. The 90-second video starts with a woman nonchalantly announcing the catastrophic news: “So there’s been a nuclear attack. Don’t ask me how or why, just know that the big one has hit.” Then the PSA video advises New Yorkers on what to do in case of a nuclear attack: Get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned to media and governmental updates.
But nuclear preparedness works better if you are not in the blast radius of a nuclear attack. Otherwise, there’s no going into your house and closing your doors because the house will be gone. Now imagine there have been hundreds of those “big ones.” That’s what even a “small” nuclear war would include. If you are lucky not to be within the blast radius of one of those, it may not ruin your day, but soon enough, it will ruin your whole life.
Today is the 10th Annual International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
Today, September 26th, 2024, marks a significant milestone—the 10th annual UN-designated International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. This day, established to promote global nuclear disarmament, saw a high-level meeting at the United Nations. During the event, UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a powerful message, urging nuclear-armed states to
“stop gambling with humanity’s future.”
He emphasized the urgent need for countries to honor their disarmament obligations and, as a critical first step, commit to never using nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Guterres also called for maximum transparency from nuclear-weapon states in all matters related to their arsenals.
The push for nuclear disarmament is not only a global concern but also resonates deeply on a local level. Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, has been a vocal advocate for eliminating nuclear weapons. As the leader of an archdiocese in a state that houses key nuclear facilities, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Wester has taken a moral stand against the existence and potential use of nuclear arms. His 2022 pastoral letter, Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament, highlighted the ethical and spiritual necessity of eliminating these weapons, emphasizing their devastating potential and the grave responsibility to protect future generations from such destruction.
As we reflect on the long, devasting history of the nuclear weapons complex, leaders like Archbishop Wester remind us that the path to a world without nuclear weapons is not just a political or strategic issue but also a profound moral imperative. Through sustained international cooperation and local advocacy, the vision of a nuclear-free world might one day become a reality.
Plutonium Found in Los Alamos at Levels Comparable to Chernobyl Spark Public Outrage
Extreme contamination in Acid Canyon raises concerns over public safety and environmental health.
ZME Science | September 20, 2024 zmescience.com
A new study has revealed alarming levels of plutonium contamination near Los Alamos, New Mexico, the site where the first atomic bomb was developed. Radioactive contamination at Los Alamos may sound unsurprising but cleanup efforts by the U.S. government during the 1960s supposedly reduced it to safe levels. Today, the region welcomes many hikers and outdoor enthusiasts who embark on its trails.
The findings have led researchers and watchdog groups to call for immediate federal action. However, the government maintains that the area is safe for recreational use.
The contamination is concentrated in Acid Canyon, a site that once served as a dumping ground for nuclear waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Michael Ketterer, a Northern Arizona University scientist and lead researcher on the project, described the situation as unprecedented in his decades-long career.
“What I found here in Acid Canyon is pretty much the most extreme plutonium contamination scenario . . . in an off-site, uncontrolled environmental setting that I’ve ever seen in my career,” Ketterer told the New Mexico Political Report, adding that the contamination levels are comparable to those found near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.
A Hidden Legacy of Contamination
Acid Canyon’s contamination stems from its history as a disposal site for radioactive waste from 1943 until 1963. The Los Alamos National Laboratory, under the direction of the Department of Defense, piped liquid nuclear waste into the canyon. Over the years, the site has been the focus of cleanup efforts. But Ketterer’s recent findings suggest that those efforts may not have been sufficient at all.
New study makes harrowing discovery in soil near birthplace of atomic bomb: ‘One of the most shocking things I’ve ever stumbled across’
The radioactive material could be absorbed by plants and eventually endanger the rest of the food chain.
The Cooldown | September 20, 2024 thecooldown.com
A new study has made a troubling discovery about the health of ecosystems near Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the atomic bomb was born.
Scientists measured plutonium levels in recreational areas near the nuclear site and found they were similar to those detected at the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site in Ukraine.
What’s happening?
According to the Guardian, a Northern Arizona University research team discovered “extreme concentrations” of plutonium in the soil, plants, and water near Los Alamos.
Michael Ketterer, a NAU scientist and the study’s lead researcher, told the outlet that plutonium concentrations near New Mexico’s Acid Canyon — a popular hiking and recreational spot — were some of the highest he’d ever encountered in public spaces in the U.S. throughout his career.
“This is one of the most shocking things I’ve ever stumbled across in my life,” he told the Guardian, adding that the radioactive material is “hiding in plain sight.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Defense recently unveiled plans to increase production of plutonium pits — a critical part of nuclear weapons — at the Los Alamos site.
Editorial: US Catholics must face up to the nuclear threat, and act
“The silence, given the time, treasure and human resources devoted to the continued development of nuclear weapons, has been deafening. It amounts to a chilling complicity of the nation’s largest Christian community in a mega-death industry.”
National Catholic Reporter | September 17, 2024 ncronline.org
“We can no longer deny or ignore the dangerous predicament we have created for ourselves. We need to start talking about it with one another, all of us, and figure out concrete steps toward abolishing nuclear weapons and ending the nuclear threat.”
—Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament“
Wester wrote those words in January 2022, a haunting call with a certain biblical resonance coming as they did from a place that doesn’t have a high profile on the ecclesial landscape. It was fitting, then, that a significant step in engaging a public conversation occurred recently at the University of New Mexico — where activists and religious leaders, including Wester and Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, dared to engage with the unthinkable.
New Mexico, as the locale where the nuclear threat was born and where it continues to grow to dimensions beyond imagination, is at the heart of an existential global threat that poses a searing moral question for both church and state. In each realm we are forced to ask as we develop the means to destroy the world: Who are we?
The government is clear in where it is headed and how we define ourselves. Despite the history of hundreds of thousands of gruesome civilian deaths caused by the first uses of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, we have continued unabated in our quest to develop and refine weapons infinitely more destructive than those primitive examples.
The church was less clear, but is changing. Catholic teaching has steadily increased its objections over the decades until it finally, under Pope Francis, now unambiguously condemns even possession of nuclear weapons.
New Mexico forum highlights Catholic views on nuclear disarmament, deterrence
Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe participated in the forum and said efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons can progress when “reasonable and good-willed people enter into a critical conversation.” These are the kinds of discussions Wester sought to stimulate after the 2022 release of his 52-page pastoral letter, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament,” that challenges conventional political thinking that possessing nuclear weapons serves as a deterrence to potential attacks from other nuclear powers.
Wester wrote that the Archdiocese of Santa Fe has a special responsibility to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons since New Mexico hosts two of the nation’s three nuclear weapons laboratories, the Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories. Additionally during World War II, he said, “much of the land for the Los Alamos Lab was seized from Native American ancestral lands and Hispanic homesteaders without adequate compensation, continuing the legacy of colonialism, racism and systemic violence.”
National Catholic Reporter | September 12, 2024 ncronline.org
Tina Cordova has made it her life’s work to shed light on the negative health effects plaguing the people of New Mexico after the U.S. military detonated the world’s first atomic bomb at the Trinity test site July 16, 1945. To grasp the severity of the radiation exposure, Cordova says, “it’s important to understand our way of life.”
New Mexicans in that era relied on rivers and creeks as their main water source, and they ate what they cultivated from the soil. The radiation fallout from the detonation contaminated those sources. “We were maximally exposed,” says Cordova, who was raised in a town 45 miles from where the Trinity bomb was detonated.
Nevadans form anti-nuclear testing coalition amid resumption calls
| September 13, 2024 reviewjournal.com
While Nevada once was a site of the country’s nuclear testing and continues to play a critical role in the maintenance of nation’s nuclear stockpile, some Silver State residents are raising the alarm….
Fate of interim storage at Supreme Court could be decided by October
The Fifth Circuit Court in 2023 ruled that the Atomic Energy Act, which created the NRC, did not give the agency the authority to license storage of spent fuel away from the reactors that created it.
The Exchange Monitor | September 6, 2024 exchangemonitor.com
Supreme Court justices were scheduled Sept. 30 to consider requests to overturn a ban on the private interim storage of spent nuclear fuel, according to a notice published Wednesday.
The two requests stem from a 2023 decision in a lawsuit filed by Texas in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that voided a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license issued to Interim Storage Partners (ISP), a joint venture of Orano USA and Waste Control Specialists.
According to the dockets in both cases, NRC and ISP petitions for high-court review were to be distributed to the nine Supreme Court justices on Sept. 30.
After the justices review the petitions in what is officially called a conference, they will decide whether to hear arguments from attorneys, decide the case based only on briefs filed with the high court since June, or let the Fifth Court ruling stand.
New Mexico pushes feds to send more nuclear waste from Las Alamos to WIPP
“‘Los Alamos National Laboratory must now immediately get to work and fill the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant with legacy waste. All excuses have been voided,’ [NMED Secretary] Kenney said. ‘This is the culmination of years of effort by the Environment Department, with this consent order being one more step in holding the Department of Energy accountable.'”
Carlsbad Current-Argus | September 6, 2024 currentargus.com
New Mexico officials ordered the federal government to remove Cold War-era nuclear waste away from Los Alamos National Laboratory and dispose of some of it at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.
Biden’s ‘new’ nuclear strategy and the super-fuse that sets it off
The military is already upgrading warheads capable of fighting a war with both China and Russia simultaneously
“Although any technically accurate assessment of the physical consequences of the large-scale use of nuclear weapons instantly shows that “winning” a nuclear war has no meaning, the United States has strenuously emphasized the development of nuclear weapons technologies that could only make sense if their intended purpose is for fighting and winning nuclear wars.
The super-fuze is exactly that kind of technology.”
Responsible Statecraft | August 29, 2024 responsiblestatecraft.org
The New York Times reported last week that President Biden has approved a secret nuclear strategy refocusing on Chinese and Russian nuclear forces.
According to the paper, the new nuclear guidance “reorients America’s deterrent strategy” to meet “the need to deter Russia, the PRC (China) and North Korea simultaneously.”
However, Biden’s approval of this strategy is no more than a tacit acknowledgment of a two-decade-long U.S. technical program that has been more than just a “slight modernization” of weapons components, but a dramatic step towards the capability to fight and win nuclear wars with both China and Russia. In other words, there is nothing really “new” here at all, save the very public nature of the strategy’s acknowledgement.
In the face of all of this, Chinese and Russian leaders will have no choice but to implement countermeasures that further increase the already dangerously high readiness of their nuclear forces. This includes intensified worst-case planning that will increase the chances of nuclear responses to false warnings of attack.
The technical source of this vast improvement in U.S. nuclear firepower is a relatively new super fuse or “super fuze” that is already being fitted onto all U.S. strategic ballistic missiles. This fuse more than doubles the ability of the Trident II Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) carrying W-76 100kt warheads to destroy Chinese and Russian nuclear-tipped Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) in hardened silos.
The currently (not fully loaded) U.S. Trident Submarine force carries about 890 W-76 100kt and 400 W-88 475kt warheads. The 400 W-88 warheads have been outfitted with the super-fuze and were originally supposed to have the combination of accuracy and yield to destroy Russian silo-based ICBMs before they are launched. But there are not enough W-88s to attack both Russian and Chinese silo-based ICBMs before they can be launched.
THE GUARDIAN: Plutonium levels near US atomic site in Los Alamos similar to Chornobyl, study finds
Much of the land near the atomic bomb’s birthplace was converted to recreational areas, but toxic waste remains
The Guardian | August 26, 2024 theguardian.com
Soil, plants and water along popular recreation spots near Los Alamos, New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, are contaminated with “extreme concentrations” of plutonium, a new study has found, but calls for the federal government to act have been dismissed.
Michael Ketterer, a Northern Arizona University scientist and lead researcher on the project, said the plutonium levels in and around New Mexico’s Acid Canyon were among the highest he had ever seen in a publicly accessible area in the US during his decades-long career – comparable to what is found in Ukraine at the site of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster.
The radioactive isotopes are “hiding in plain sight”, Ketterer said.
“This is one of the most shocking things I’ve ever stumbled across in my life,” he said.
The paper comes on the heels of the US Department of Defense announcing it will ramp up production of plutonium pits, a core component of nuclear weapons, at Los Alamos. Meanwhile, the US Senate approved a defense bill with expanded funding for those exposed to the government’s radioactive waste. Local public health advocates say they are outraged by the exclusion of the Los Alamos region from the benefits.
Research: Plutonium Levels at Los Alamos Rival Chernobyl’s
Hikers use the New Mexico recreation area without being aware of contamination
, NEWSER | August 26, 2024 newser.com
Los Alamos Researcher Warns of Plutonium in Rec Areas
The federal Atomic Energy Commission turned over New Mexico land around its national laboratory decades ago to Los Alamos County without restricting its use, despite its past as the site where the atomic bomb was developed. Much of it was developed for recreational use. Researchers say there’s a problem: They’ve detected “extreme concentrations” of plutonium in the area, which hikers and others aren’t aware of when they head down a trail, the Guardian reports. “This is one of the most shocking things I’ve ever stumbled across in my life,” said Michael Ketterer of Northern Arizona University, the project’s lead researcher.
Plutonium levels detected around Acid Canyon were among the highest Ketterer said he’s seen in a publicly accessible area in the US, and are comparable to those at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine. People using the trails aren’t in immediate danger, he said, while warning that plutonium can get into water supplies that eventually reach the Rio Grande. It also can enter the food chain through plants or spread widely in ash during a wildfire. The Department of Energy issued a statement saying that the levels were “very low and well within the safe exposure range.” Public health advocates want warning signs to go up for recreational users.
Mapping by a local public health advocacy group, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, that used public records also showed high plutonium levels at sample sites throughout the area, per the Guardian. The research shows “New Mexico will forever be saddled with a radioactive isotope that has a 24,000-year half-life,” said Tina Cordova of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium advocacy group. Ketterer said cleanup—removing the contamination—isn’t practical, per the AP. “It really can’t be undone,” he said.Canyon.
People Harmed by Radiation Exposure Can Forget About Any Federal Compensation
Speaker Mike Johnson killed a proposal to provide benefits to victims of America’s nuclear program.
“It’s really tough to have people say, ‘Nope, sorry that’s too expensive. It wasn’t too expensive to poison you, but it’s too expensive to fix what we did and you aren’t worth it.'”
By Katherine Hapgood, Mother Jones | August 21, 2024 motherjones.com
It wasn’t a difficult choice for Linda Evers, after graduating high school in 1976, to take a job crushing dirt for the Kerr McGee uranium mill, just north of her hometown Grants, New Mexico. Most gigs in town paid $1.75 an hour. This one offered $9 an hour.
She spent seven years working in New Mexico’s uranium mines and mills, driving a truck and loading the ore crusher for much of the late 1970s and early ’80s, including through her pregnancies with each of her children. “When I told them I was pregnant,” Evers, now 66, recalled, “they told me it was okay, I could work until my belly wouldn’t let me reach the conveyor belts anymore.”
Both children were born with health defects—her son with a muscle wrapped around the bottom of his stomach and her daughter without hips. Today, Evers herself suffers from scarring lungs, a degenerative bone and joint disease, and multiple skin rashes. All of which doctors have attributed to radiation exposure.
“We never learned about uranium exposure or any of that. They were killing us. And they knew they were killing us.”
Scientist says there’s legacy plutonium contamination in Los Alamos
‘Extreme plutonium contamination scenario’ identified in research from , soil, water and plant samples taken in Acid Canyon arroyos
, SOURCE NM | August 16, 2024 sourcenm.com
Los Alamos, the Atomic City, is facing a legacy of its nickname.
High levels of plutonium present in samples taken in July from soil, plants and water in Los Alamos’ Acid Canyon may be the oldest contamination in the state, predating the 1945 Trinity Site atomic test, said Michael Ketterer, an analytical chemist and retired professor of chemistry from Northern Arizona University.
“There are some references to contamination being introduced into Acid Canyon starting in 1943,” he said Thursday. “It is very logical to me that this is some of the earliest produced material.”
The legacy plutonium contamination estimated to have lasted into the 1960s is still impacting the land, water and potentially human health, he said in a presentation hosted by Nuclear Watch NM.
“What I’ve found here in Acid Canyon, my friends, is I’d say pretty much the most extreme plutonium contamination scenario I’ve seen in an offsite, uncontrolled environmental setting,” Ketterer said, alluding to thousands of plutonium samples he’s analyzed in his 20-year career.
He said that contamination levels surpass samples he took at private properties around the former plutonium pit production site in Rocky Flats, Colorado.
One concern, which he said warrants immediate federal or state environment protection intervention, was the levels of plutonium contamination in water flows in Acid Canyon.
Scientist describe levels of plutonium near Los Alamos ‘alarmingly high’
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (KRQE) – New findings from a study aimed at researching how much plutonium is in the ground and water near Los Alamos National Laboratory, have the lead scientists concerned.
“I’m just trying to show New Mexicans what the truth is here,” said Dr. Michael Ketterer, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Arizona University. Over the last few months, Dr. Ketterer has collected and analyzed plutonium levels from a trailhead at Acid Canyon in Los Alamos, NM.
“I see a lot of things to be concerned about here,” Dr. Ketterer said.
In his study, Dr. Ketterer says he found “alarmingly high results” of plutonium contamination. Though radiation levels are not high enough to hurt people walking the trail, advocates with Nuclear Watch New Mexico worry about what could happen if a fire broke out, warning that the smoke inhaled could lead to lung cancer.
“Were Acid Canyon to burn in a wildfire, and we know that threat is all too real, that could be dangerous in the form of respirable plutonium that is released to the air through wildfire,” said Jay Coghlan, Executive Director for Nuclear Watch New Mexico.
“We can’t really predict where it’s going to go and how bad it’s going to be,” added Dr. Ketterer about the possibility of a fire happening in the area.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc
Watchdog group reports ‘extreme contamination’ of plutonium at Los Alamos open space
The legacy of environmental waste is “hiding in plain sight” at a popular open space in the heart of Los Alamos that became a dumping ground during the Manhattan Project, according to testing results a nuclear watchdog group released Thursday.
By Daniel J. Chacón [email protected], Santa Fe New Mexican | August 15, 2024 santafenewmexican.com
Soil, plant and water samples collected in July from Acid Canyon — yes, Acid Canyon — revealed “extreme contamination,” including detections of what Nuclear Watch New Mexico said is some of the earliest plutonium produced by humankind.
“What I found here in Acid Canyon [is] pretty much the most extreme contamination scenario I’ve seen in an off-site, uncontrolled environmental setting,” Michael Ketterer, a professor emeritus of chemistry and biochemistry at Northern Arizona University, said during a virtual briefing.
Ketterer, who collected the samples in July with the help of the watchdog group, said he’s analyzed tens of thousands of plutonium samples in a decadeslong career.
“This is way, way, way, way, way at the top end of the charts in terms of how much,” he said. “This is extreme contamination.”
Ketterer said he would compare it to “Chernobyl proximity samples” and samples close to Palomares, Spain, after a B-52 bomber carrying hydrogen bombs collided with a refueling plane in 1966 and coated the seaside town in radioactive dust.
“Hundreds of samples from near Rocky Flats do not come close at all,” he said, referring to a former nuclear weapons production facility in Colorado.
Watchdogs want US to address extreme plutonium contamination in Los Alamos’ Acid Canyon
“This is an unrestricted area. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in the United States,” the professor told reporters. “It’s just an extreme example of very high concentrations of plutonium in soils and sediments. Really, you know, it’s hiding in plain sight.”
Ketterer teamed up with the group Nuclear Watch New Mexico to gather the samples in July, a rainy period that often results in isolated downpours and stormwater runoff coursing through canyons and otherwise dry arroyos. Water was flowing through Acid Canyon when the samples were taken.
BY SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS | August 15, 2024 apnews.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Watchdogs are raising new concerns about legacy contamination in Los Alamos, the birthplace of the atomic bomb and home to a renewed effort to manufacture key components for nuclear weapons.
A Northern Arizona University professor emeritus who analyzed soil, water and vegetation samples taken along a popular hiking and biking trail in Acid Canyon said Thursday that there were more extreme concentrations of plutonium found there than at other publicly accessible sites he has researched in his decades-long career.
That includes land around the federal government’s former weapons plant at Rocky Flats in Colorado.
While outdoor enthusiasts might not be in immediate danger while traveling through the pine tree-lined canyon, Michael Ketterer — who specializes in tracking the chemical fingerprints of radioactive materials — said state and local officials should be warning people to avoid coming in contact with water in Acid Canyon.
A nuclear legacy in Los Alamos
After three cleanups, independent analysis shows 80-year-old plutonium persists in Acid Canyon and beyond
By Alicia Inez Guzmán, Searchlight New Mexico | August 15, 2024 searchlightnm.org
The world’s oldest documented plutonium contamination may not lie not in the Chihuahuan Desert at the Trinity Site, where the first-ever atomic bomb ripped open the skies and melted the sand into green glass. Rather, that distinction more likely goes to Los Alamos’s Acid Canyon, according to an independent study by Michael Ketterer, professor emeritus of chemistry and biochemistry at Northern Arizona University.
Ketterer announced these findings at an online press conference held by Nuclear Watch New Mexico on Aug. 15, after collecting and analyzing soil, water and plant samples in Acid Canyon, a popular hiking area in the middle of town. Beginning in 1943, the year the Manhattan Project came to Los Alamos, workers released radioactive waste into the canyon. Three remediations would follow, but as Ketterer’s analysis found, “a super weapons-grade” plutonium persists in the soil, water and plant life in and around Los Alamos, representing some of the earliest ever made.
One thought came to his mind as he analyzed samples from the area, collected last month:
“I’ve never seen anything like this in any samples anywhere,” he told Searchlight New Mexico in an interview.
How a US health agency became a shield for polluters
Companies and others responsible for some of America’s most toxic waste sites are using a federal health agency’s faulty reports to save money on cleanups, defend against lawsuits and deny victims compensation, a Reuters investigation found. A Missouri neighborhood’s tale.
By JAIMI DOWDELL, M.B. PELL, BENJAMIN LESSER, MICHELLE CONLIN, PHOEBE QUINTON and WAYLON CUNNINGHAM, Reuters | August 11, 2024 reuters.com
When they bought their homes in the Spanish Village neighborhood northwest of St. Louis, many residents had no idea a radioactive landfill sat less than a mile away.
Health conditions mounted over the years, suggesting something wasn’t right.
Wester warns: ‘We are now in a nuclear arms race far more dangerous than the first’
“…There is a frustration that our world leaders are not listening. The tragedy of the 200,000 killed both in Hiroshima and Nagasaki seems to fall on deaf ears.
We are now in a nuclear arms race arguably far more dangerous than the first. We see countries modernizing their nuclear arsenals and spending scads of money in what appears to be (a move toward) ‘nuclear weapons forever.’”
By OSV News | August 6, 2024 catholicreview.org
Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, N.M., has traveled to Japan on a “pilgrimage of peace” commemorating the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The pilgrimage, which the archbishop undertook last year as well, was announced Aug. 3 by the Santa Fe Archdiocese.
The attacks on the two Japanese cities — launched by the U.S. on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, in an effort to force the unconditional surrender of Japan and hasten the end of the war — killed an estimated 110,000 to 210,000 people. The true number of casualties is “probably fundamentally unknowable,” according to nuclear weapons historian Alex Wellerstein.
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Hiroshima – The Unknown Images
On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., a bright flash set the sky over Hiroshima ablaze. A gigantic column of smoke rises above the city. The first nuclear bomb in history has just been dropped on the largest metropolis in western Japan.
This 2015 documentary shows this tragedy from the inside using photos taken that day.
Nuclear disarmament seemed possible. The imagined destruction of a Kansas town helped get us there.
“While part of the rationale for modernizing the American arsenal is safety — some of the warheads in the stockpile are 50 years old — the other part is deterrence. Despite the end of the Cold War, the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction continues. We find ourselves in a new arms race, one that aims to keep existing stockpiles stable but make new weapons out of them that are more reliable and precise, and hence deadlier.”
By Max McCoy, Kansas Reflector | August 4, 2024 kansasreflector.com
From miles above the midwestern prairies, I got a first-hand look at the machinery of doomsday.
Lying on my stomach in a pod beneath the tail of a KC-135 Stratotanker I watched as the operator next to me guided the flying boom behind us toward an aircraft keeping pace just below. This was a midair refueling mission, and the boom would top off the tanks of the receiving aircraft. That plane, with its white upper fuselage and black nose, was an EC-135 airborne command post, code named “Looking Glass.”
I’ve been thinking about that flight lately as the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki again approach. On Tuesday, it will be 79 years since the U.S. destroyed Hiroshima with an atomic bomb, followed three days later by the bombing of Nagasaki. More than 200,000 people were killed, mostly civilians. The bombings hastened the end of World War II but heralded the passing of our technological innocence — we finally had the power to annihilate ourselves as a species.
Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons: Archbishop John C. Wester to Honor the 79th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
ALBUQUERQUE, NM – Saturday, August 3, 2024 – IMMEDIATE RELEASE—Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons: Most Rev. John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, are set to embark on a pilgrimage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings. This visit underscores the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s unwavering commitment to advocating for universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament.
During this multi-day journey, they will engage with Japanese and Korean bishops, fostering dialogue and solidarity in the shared mission to eliminate nuclear weapons globally. This pilgrimage is a testament to the enduring spirit of peace and reconciliation and a call to action for renewed and serious conversations about disarmament in New Mexico and around the world.
“Standing in the very places where the catastrophic consequences of nuclear warfare were first realized compels us to rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of a world free from nuclear weapons,” said Archbishop Wester. “This pilgrimage is not only a gesture of remembrance but also a commitment to continue our work toward global peace and security.”
He emphasized the critical need for sustained advocacy. “The lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are more relevant than ever. As we honor the victims and survivors of these tragedies, we must also challenge the status quo and push for real progress in nuclear disarmament.”
The visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki will include participation in memorial ceremonies, meetings with survivors (hibakusha), and discussions with key religious and civic leaders. These activities will serve as a powerful reminder of the moral and ethical imperatives to dismantle nuclear arsenals and prevent future nuclear catastrophes.
Nuclear News Archive – 2022
Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is ‘Very Likely to Work,’ Studies Suggest
“…the hurdles to building a machine that can create and control a fusion plasma — a roiling ultrahot cloud of atoms that will damage or destroy anything it touches — are enormous.”
BY: HENRY FOUNTAIN | nytimes.com
Scientists developing a compact version of a nuclear fusion reactor have shown in a series of research papers that it should work, renewing hopes that the long-elusive goal of mimicking the way the sun produces energy might be achieved and eventually contribute to the fight against climate change.
Construction of a reactor, called Sparc, which is being developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a spinoff company, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, is expected to begin next spring and take three or four years, the researchers and company officials said.
Although many significant challenges remain, the company said construction would be followed by testing and, if successful, building of a power plant that could use fusion energy to generate electricity, beginning in the next decade.
DOE Activities Raise Safety Concerns about Plutonium at Three Facilities
“The DOE proposal to dispose of the useless MOX fuel pellets is unprecedented, but has been subjected to only a brief mention in an environmental analysis on pit production. Tom Clements, director of SRS Watch, says, “The analysis conducted on the disposal of the plutonium fuel is totally inadequate and a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) must be conducted before any repackaging and shipment to WIPP. ”
September 30, 2020 | nuclearactive.org
According to the Department of Energy (DOE), plans are under way to remove unused plutonium fuel from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The uranium-plutonium fuel, containing around 26.4 kilograms (58.2 pounds) of weapon-grade plutonium, is called “mixed-oxide,” or MOX. In a late-August document, DOE stated that the MOX fuel, produced in France for a program at the Savannah River Site (SRS), would be disposed of as transuranic waste and therefore go to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
At present the MOX fuel, in the form of pellets, is stored at LANL’s PF-4 plutonium facility. DOE needs to empty PF-4 to have space for its planned annual production of up to eighty plutonium “pits”, or triggers, for nuclear weapons.
Four powerful players want a nuclear waste solution. What’s stopping them?
“The nuclear industry’s position in support of spent fuel legislation is tempered by a combination of reality and priorities. While the industry regularly testifies in favor of finding a long-term solution to the spent fuel problem, the reality is that state legislative prohibitions on the construction of new nuclear reactors are meaningless, given that no new reactors are planned in the foreseeable future. It is uneconomic and/or not politically viable to build a new reactor in the United States—even one of the small modular reactors under development.”
BY: JDAVID KLAUS | thebulletin.org
The 92-page platform adopted at the Democratic National Convention does not include a single sentence on the issue of how to manage the more than 80,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel sitting at 70 sites in communities across the country. The Republicans adjourned without adopting any new platform for 2020, leaving their 2016 platform in place—but it also did not address the nuclear waste issue.
Ironically, political interest in addressing the spent fuel issue is decreasing at a time when the number of closed nuclear plants in the United States is increasing—and it is common practice to level the plant and leave the spent fuel behind. If the issue had been as significant a political priority today as it was in the past, it would have been included in one or both of the platforms.
In its 2004 and 2008 platforms, the Democratic Party committed to “protect Nevada and its communities from the high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, which has not been proven to be safe by sound science.” Republicans, in their 2012 platform, focused on how “[t]he federal government’s failure to address the storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel has left huge bills for States and taxpayers.”
Trump Administration Orders Assessment on Bolstering Nuclear Warheads as Talks With Russia Stall
“U.S. diplomats are trying to play hardball with Russia in negotiations over whether to extend New START.
“It’s very stupid,” added a former GOP arms control official who declined to be identified because he still advises the government. “It makes absolutely no sense to threaten to upload. It becomes a valid leveraging point only if the other side can’t do it. The Russians can do it, too.” ”
BY: DANIEL LIPPMAN, BRYAN BENDER & LARA SELIGMAN | politico.com
The Trump administration has asked the military to assess how quickly it could pull nuclear weapons out of storage and load them onto bombers and submarines if an arms control treaty with Russia is allowed to expire in February, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
The request to U.S. Strategic Command in Nebraska is part of a strategy to pressure Moscow into renegotiating the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty before the U.S. presidential election, the people said.
In making the request, the Trump administration wants to underscore that it is serious about letting the treaty lapse if Russia fails to meet U.S. demands. The negotiating team is leery that Russia is dragging out the talks in the hope that Joe Biden — who has pledged to extend New START under what Moscow believes will be more favorable terms than what this White House is offering — wins the election.
“It’s a clear signal that the costs for not negotiating before the election are going to go up,” said one of the people, who requested anonymity to relay sensitive discussions. The Trump administration is “trying to create an incentive, and it’s a real incentive, for the Russians to sit down and actually negotiate.”
The request for the assessment came in the last two weeks from a group of officials at the National Security Council and State, Defense and Energy departments that’s supporting Ambassador Marshall Billingslea in negotiations with Moscow to try to replace New START before it runs out in February.
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U.S. Department of Energy Confirms 11.5 Metric Tons of Plutonium Stored at Savannah River Site; SRS Watch Supports DOE Assertion that Plutonium Storage “Not Posing any Additional Risk to Communities Surrounding the SRS”
https://srswatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/SRSW-news-on-SRS-plutonium-inventory-Sep-29-2020.pdf
Kaysville Withdraws From Nuclear Power Project
“We just don’t want to take on the risk of being in the project at this point.” – Councilman Andre Lortz
One more Utah city has withdrawn from a project to build 12 small nuclear reactors west of Idaho Falls.
The Kaysville City Council voted unanimously a week-and-a-half ago to withdraw from the Carbon Free Power Project, although the resolution left the door open for the city to hold a special meeting to rejoin the project if anything changes.
“Kaysville City is still interested in being involved with the UAMPS project,” Mayor Katie Witt said in an email. “However, we did withdraw on Sept. 17 for the time being. We would like to participate if our concerns are mitigated.”
Councilman Andre Lortz said he believes in the project, calling it “an innovative project that’s going to be very important in the future” that could fill gaps wind and solar power can’t.
“We’d love to be in this project,” he said. “We just don’t want to take on the risk of being in the project at this point.”
Lehi and Logan have also withdrawn from the Carbon Free Power Project over the past month-and-a-half, citing potential risks to local taxpayers if costs go up. There are still more than 30 cities and power systems, including Idaho Falls, that are part of it, and the members have until Oct. 31 to recommit to the project’s next phase by approving the new budget. Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems is waiting for the U.S. Department of Energy to give final approval to a promised $1.4 billion to support the project.
Portland-based NuScale Power is designing the small modular reactors, which will produce 720 megawatts and which UAMPS plans to build at the DOE desert site west of Idaho Falls. The plant is expected to be operational in 2029.
WORLD NUCLEAR INDUSTRY LOSES GROUND TO CHEAP RENEWABLES AS CANADA CONSIDERS SMALL MODULAR REACTORS
“The world nuclear industry “continues to be in stasis,” with power plants shutting down at a faster rate in western Europe and the United States, the number of operating reactor units at a 30-year low, and the few new construction projects running into “catastrophic cost overruns and schedule slippages,” according to the latest edition of the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR), released last week.”
“Some 408 nuclear reactors were in operation in 31 countries as of July 2020, a decline of nine units from mid-2019 and 30 fewer than the 2002 peak of 438,” Reuters writes, citing the report. “The slow pace of new projects coming onstream also increased the overall age of the global fleet to around 31 years.”
“Overall, in terms of the cost of power, new nuclear is clearly losing to wind and photovoltaics,” with the two renewable technologies now receiving about 10 times the investment, write Jungmin Kang, former chair of South Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, South Korea, and Princeton University Professor Emeritus Frank von Hippel, in their foreword to the 361-page report. That meant new nuclear projects “were struggling to secure finance amid competition from renewables, with reported investment decisions for the construction of new nuclear plants at around US$31 billion in 2019,” Reuters says.
Biden would push for less US reliance on nukes for defense
“If future budgets reverse the choices we’ve made, and pour additional money into a nuclear buildup, it hearkens back to the Cold War and will do nothing to increase the day-to-day security of the United States or our allies,” Biden said in a Jan. 11, 2017, speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The State of New Mexico Objects to Nuclear Fuel Storage Plan
“New Mexico is strongly objecting to federal nuclear regulators’ preliminary recommendation that a license be granted to build a multibillion-dollar storage facility for spent nuclear fuel from commercial power plants around the U.S.”
BY: SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN / ASSOCIATED PRESS abqjournal.com
State officials, in a letter submitted Tuesday to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that the site is geologically unsuitable and that technical analysis has been inadequate. They also say regulators have failed to consider environmental justice concerns and have therefore fallen short of requirements spelled out by federal environmental laws.
The letter also reiterates the state’s concerns that the storage facility would become a permanent dumping ground for the spent fuel, as the federal government has no permanent plan for dealing with the waste that has been piling up at nuclear power plants.
The officials pointed to a legacy of contamination in New Mexico that includes uranium mining and milling and decades of nuclear research and bomb-making at national laboratories, saying minority and low-income populations already have suffered disproportionate health and environmental effects as a result.
Given the concerns, state officials wrote that a draft environmental review of the project “fails to demonstrate that residents of New Mexico, including vulnerable populations, will be adequately protected from exposure to the radioactive and toxic contaminants that could be released to air and water by the proposed action.”
A group of Democratic state lawmakers also raised concerns.
Elected leaders in southeastern New Mexico support the project, saying it would bring jobs and revenue to the region and provide a temporary option for dealing with the spent fuel.
The WNISR2020 Assesses Challenges Nuclear Power is Facing in the Age of COVID‑19
“New renewable resources like wind and solar power increased by 184 gigawatts last year, while nuclear power grew by only 2.4 gigawatts. As a result — for the first time in history — renewable sources (excluding hydropower) generated more power than nuclear plants in 2019.”
“Nuclear energy has become irrelevant in the electricity generating technology market,” said Mycle Schneider, the coordinator of the report. “At the same time, COVID-19 puts additional stress on the sector.”
September 24, 2020 | worldnuclearreport.com
The World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR2020), released on 24 September 2020, assesses in 361 pages the status and trends of the international nuclear industry and analyzes the additional challenges nuclear power is facing in the age of COVID-19. For the first time we report includes as specific chapter analyzing nuclear programs in the Middle East as the first reactor started up in the Arab world.
Seven interdisciplinary experts from Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Lebanon/U.S. and the U.K., from top think tanks like Chatham House in London and prestigious universities like Harvard in Cambridge, Meiji in Tokyo and Technical University in Berlin, have contributed to the report, along with a data engineer, numerous proofreaders and two artistic designers. The foreword was provided by Frank von Hippel, Professor Emeritus of Princeton University, and Jungmin Kang, former head of the safety authority in South Korea.
The number of operating reactors in the world has dropped by nine over the past year to 408 as of mid-2020, that is below the level already reached in 1988, and 30 units below the historic peak of 438 in 2002.
Ohio EPA: Plan for A-plant landfill to be issued
Piketon’s Chandler rips Ohio delegation; Pike Commissioner vows legal action
BY: RICK GREENE | southernohiotoday.com
Piketon Councilwoman Jennifer Chandler criticized Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman, along with U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup, for what she calls a lack of engagement on the controversial issue of an On-Site Waste Disposal Facility at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Piketon. “Now they can have the largest nuclear waste dump east of the Mississippi River,” Chandler said.
In a virtual meeting Tuesday, the Ohio EPA announced it plans to issue the Waste Acceptance Criteria Implementation Plan, which outlines the disposition process for materials allowed to be placed into the controversial On-Site Waste Disposal Facility at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Piketon.
The announcement comes despite calls from officials with the Village of Piketon and the Pike County Board of Commissioners for more engagement from the public on the contaminants that will be permitted inside the radiological landfill.
During the meeting, the Ohio EPA explained the Waste Acceptance Criteria had been established in 2015 during the process that led to the Waste Disposition Record of Decision. Ohio EPA says the Implementation Plan deals primarily with the execution of the disposition of wastes previously determined by the 2015 Waste Acceptance Criteria.
Piketon Councilwoman Jennifer Chandler, a longtime critic of the U.S. Department of Energy and the landfill, asked multiple questions during the virtual forum. Afterwards, she said she remains frustrated by DOE, the Ohio EPA and Ohio’s federal delegation by what she calls a complete disregard for the people of Southern Ohio.
“I’m getting angrier and angrier as Ohio EPA continues to dodge questions and continues to suggest there was public involvement in this process,” Chandler said. “I do appreciate the forum and appreciate it was tough for some (Ohio EPA representatives) to say what they had to say. But it was very clear to all of us who is really in charge of this project, and that’s DOE and it’s going to have its way in Southern Ohio because Ohio EPA can’t do anything about it.”
Why Does Missile Defense Still Enjoy Bipartisan Support in Congress?
“…Ending the defense contractor honey pot. Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative was a turning point because it provided substantial funding for missile defense research and design. It was as though the defense contractors who were engaged in this research had suddenly found gold in a Wild West landscape. The initiative became an uncontrollable and unaccountable program with lax oversight, resulting in wasted taxpayer money and virtually no advancement in missile defense technologies.”
BY: SUBRATA GHOSHROY | thebulletin.org
The program to develop a missile defense system to protect the United States mainland has existed in one form or another for nearly six decades. Though it was controversial from the beginning and faced nearly unsurmountable technical challenges, it has enjoyed bipartisan support and continued funding in Congress for more than 20 years.
In July, both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed their own versions of a defense authorization bill for 2021. By a wide majority, both chambers authorized more than $740 billion for defense spending next year. Tucked away in the Senate bill was $20.3 billion for missile defense, and that funding could make it into the final version that lands on the president’s desk. While $20.3 billion may not seem significant in a $740 billion budget, it is nevertheless a startling figure. What’s more, US taxpayers have invested nearly $200 billion on missile defense in the past two decades and another $100 billion in the decade before, with little to show for it. Even under artificially easy tests conditions, the most modern missile defense system meant to protect the United States mainland has failed more times than it has succeeded often in highly scripted tests.
U.S. scrambles to do nuclear deal with Russia before election, issuing ultimatum
Frustration is mounting inside the Trump administration as Russia gives little indication of whether it will agree to an arms control deal before President Trump faces reelection, according to senior U.S. administration officials, who are trying to secure the deal.
The administration’s scramble to cut a deal with Russia before the election comes as the president’s top diplomats have been rushing to secure diplomatic achievements as U.S. voters begin going to the polls.
‘Midnight Rockets’: Whistleblower lawsuit reveals toxic releases by Ohio nuclear plant
“According to the suit, the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant “would regularly and purposefully vent raw UF6 [uranium hexafluoride], transuranics, heavy metals, and o’her toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.’”
BY: SEAMUS BRUNER | justthenews.com
A whistleblower lawsuit filed by former workers at an Ohio nuclear plant has revealed new details about disturbing practices during the plaintiffs’ tenures at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS), including the alarming process — dubbed “midnight rockets” — of releasing toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.
According to the suit, “PORTS would regularly and purposefully vent raw UF6 [uranium hexafluoride], transuranics, heavy metals, and other toxic chemicals into the atmosphere from the roof of the process buildings.”
Filed against U.S. Department of Energy nuclear fuel contractors on Sept. 3 in the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, Walburn, et al, v. Centrus Energy Corp., et al alleges criminal conduct, gross negligence, poisoning of nuclear workers, and contamination of Ohio communities in Pike, Scioto and neighboring counties with radioactive isotopes, causing cancer clusters, injuries, sickness and death, as well as loss of property values.
Bechtel & Aecom, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Contractors, Agree to Pay $57.75 Million to Resolve Claims of Time Charging Fraud at Doe’s Hanford Waste Treatment Plant
Major Government Contractors Admit to Overcharging between 2009 and 2019 by Billing Time Not Worked, and also Agree to Three-Year Independent Corporate Monitor
U.S ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, EASTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON |
Richland and Spokane, WA – Today, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington announced that major federal contractors Bechtel National Inc., Bechtel Corporation (Bechtel), AECOM Energy & Construction, Inc. (AECOM), and their subsidiary Waste Treatment Completion Company, LLC (WTCC), agreed to pay $57,750,000 to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to resolve claims that Bechtel and AECOM fraudulently overcharged the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in connection with its operation of the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) project. The False Claims Act (FCA) claims arose from allegations that Bechtel and AECOM management were aware of and failed to prevent inflated labor hours being charged to DOE, and for falsely billing DOE for work not actually performed.
The WTP is located at DOE’s Hanford Site near Richland, Washington. Between 2001 and the present, DOE has paid billions of dollars to Bechtel and AECOM to have them design and construct the WTP, the purpose of which is to treat hundreds of millions of gallons of dangerous radioactive waste currently stored at the Hanford Site. To construct, operate, and maintain the WTP, Bechtel and AECOM employed hundreds of electricians, millwrights, pipefitters, and other skilled tradesmen known as “craft” workers.
As part of the settlement secured by the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the Eastern District of Washington, Bechtel and AECOM admitted to a detailed Statement of Facts setting forth their actionable conduct. Between 2009 and 2019, Bechtel and AECOM admitted to overcharging DOE for unreasonable and unallowable idle time experienced by craft personnel. Bechtel and AECOM further admitted to failing to schedule and carry out adequate work to keep craft personnel sufficiently occupied and productive, resulting in excessive idle time. Bechtel and AECOM also admitted that Bechtel and AECOM management knew that craft personnel were experiencing idle time due to management’s failure to assign sufficient work, and that this idle time could, at times, last “several hours.” Finally, Bechtel and AECOM admitted that they improperly billed DOE labor costs for the unreasonable idle time and continued doing so for years, even after Bechtel and AECOM knew they were under investigation for the improper billing practices.
LANL Could Put Weapons-Grade Waste in WIPP
Tom Clements, executive director of the nonprofit Savannah River Site Watch, said the unspent fuel rods at Los Alamos contain weapons-grade plutonium. He also contended the proposed disposal method is improper and potentially dangerous. The material could get in the wrong hands or a waste barrel could burst, he said
BY: SCOTT WYLAND | santafenewmexican.com
The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to move weapons-grade plutonium from Los Alamos National Laboratory to an underground storage site in Southern New Mexico that nuclear watchdogs say is not intended to hold such high-level waste.
The plan could pose a security risk, argued the leader of one watchdog group, who believes officials should conduct more analysis before moving forward.
About 26.4 kilograms of unspent nuclear fuel rods, which have been stored at Los Alamos’ plutonium plant since 2005, must be cleared out to make room for the production of new pits, the softball-sized cores that trigger warheads, according to an August report.
Former World Leaders Urge Ratification of Nuclear Arms Ban Treaty
“In an open letter, the onetime leaders implored their own governments to embrace an arms treaty negotiated at the U.N. three years ago. It is six ratifications short of the 50 needed to go into effect.”
Nonetheless, delegates from 122 nations — practically two-thirds of the U.N. membership — participated within the negotiations for the treaty, and 84 have signed it. As of Sunday, 44 of these nations had ratified the treaty, which might come into power 90 days after the 50th ratification. At least one or two extra nations might ratify it in coming days or even weeks.
Under the treaty, all nuclear-weapons use, risk of use, testing, growth, manufacturing, possession, switch and stationing in a special nation can be prohibited. For nuclear-armed nations that be part of, the treaty outlines a course of for destroying stockpiles and imposing the promise to stay free of nuclear weapons.
These Russians aren’t going away
“Labeled “extremists” and “foreign agents”, Fedor Maryasov and Andrey Talevlin put country and courage first.”
beyondnuclearinternational.com
The first time Fedor Maryasov realized that something might be very wrong in his community was as a teenager. Growing up in the uranium mining city of Zarafshan, Uzbekistan, young Fedor and his friends would swim in artificial ponds holding discharge water from the uranium mines. They fished there too, but they began to notice the fish were disfigured by genetic abnormalities, displaying red spots and growths. Still, the authorities were saying nothing. And the teenage boys, like most people in Zarafshan, knew little about how radiation affects living organisms.
Ambassador: Time is right for new arms control agreement
“Arguing that its stockpile is small, China has said it would participate only if the U.S. agrees to nuclear parity among all nations. Russia has suggested that if China were part of the pact, other countries would need to be included as well.”
BY: The Associated Press, SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN | apnews.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The Trump administration has sketched out a framework that it hopes will avoid a three-way arms race as a deadline nears for extending the only remaining nuclear arms control deal with Russia and as China looks to expand its nuclear forces.
Ambassador Marshall Billingslea, the special presidential envoy for arms control, spoke with The Associated Press about negotiations with Russia while touring some of the top nuclear research labs and production sites in the United States.
Arizona’s ‘downwinders,’ exposed to Cold War nuclear testing, fight for compensation
“It’s a travesty, and the government should not be allowed to get away with it,” one Mohave County, Arizona, resident said.
BY: ANITA HASSAN | nbcnews.com
KINGMAN, Ariz. — Danielle Stephens ran her fingers down a long list of her relatives’ names and sighed.
All of them had been diagnosed with cancer. Most of them had died, many before they were 55.
Like Stephens, 81, they had all spent their lives in Kingman, Arizona, where during the Cold War they often watched the early morning sky lit up by orange flashes from atomic bombs detonated at a government testing site in the Nevada desert less than 150 miles north of the city.
“Back then, no one thought the tests were dangerous,” said Stephens, who ran a cattle ranch with her husband.
The list of her family members with cancer grew to 32 in July, when she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. It is the radiation exposure from those nuclear tests that Stephens believes caused her cancer and that of her family members and scores of others who lived in lower Mohave County in the 1950s and ’60s. Her relatives had breast, colon, thyroid and kidney cancer, all of which have been linked to radioactive fallout.
Biden says US must maintain small force in Middle East, has no plans for major Defense cuts
“The former vice president said the largest readiness issue facing the military is America’s strained relationship with NATO. “They’re worried as hell about our failure to confront Russia diplomatically or other ways, and worried about ‘America First’ meaning ‘America Alone,’” he said.”
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that he supports drawing down troops in the Middle East but if elected president would keep a small force there to prevent extremists from posing a threat to the United States and its allies.
“These ‘forever wars’ have to end. I support drawing down the troops. But here’s the problem, we still have to worry about terrorism and [the Islamic State],” Biden told Stars and Stripes in a telephone interview.
He also said he does not foresee major reductions in the U.S. defense budget as the military refocuses its attention to potential threats from “near-peer” powers such as China and Russia.
Georgia: At crucial crossroads, nuclear plant must be stopped
“In 2001, 30 new reactors were ordered in the U.S., but the so-called “nuclear renaissance” rapidly fizzled leaving only Georgia Power and Vogtle. Meanwhile, renewable energy, in particular solar power, has become abundant and cheap, and solar and wind have been the fastest-growing energy sector for the past several years.”
BY: GLENN CARROLL | augustachronicle.com
In 1977, a small group of thoughtful, committed Georgians started a grassroots anti-nuclear group to oppose nuclear power, nuclear weapons and radioactive waste and to promote alternative visions for renewable energy and world peace.
At the same time, Georgia Power was resuming construction of Vogtle 1 and 2, having nearly gone bankrupt three years earlier while attempting to build a four-reactor nuclear compound with a budget of $1 billion.
Only 10 weeks after breaking ground, incredibly, Vogtle construction ground to a halt with Georgia Power on the brink of bankruptcy. Georgia Power was saved by two emergency rate hikes thanks to the Georgia Public Service Commission and by selling shares of its hole-in-the-ground Vogtle to most of Georgia’s rural electric cooperatives and municipal power systems.
How to Talk About Nuclear Weapons
Why getting people to care about nuclear policy matters.
BY: ZACK BROWN | nationalinterest.org
It’s a truism of the nuclear field that arms control advocates don’t always win the war of words with their opponents, said Lynn Fahselt, co-founder and executive director of the communications organization ReThink Media.KINGMAN, Ariz. — Danielle Stephens ran her fingers down a long list of her relatives’ names and sighed.
“The first media audit we did showed that, on the opinion pages, we were being beat three to one,” she said in an interview with the podcast, Press The Button. “For every one argument we made for arms control and disarmament, our opposition was making two and calling ours naive.”
At first glance, this editorial record might seem like a minor datapoint in the grand scheme of nuclear politics. But in a fast-moving democracy whose attention span is only as long as the shortest news cycle, wins in the court of public opinion—even small ones—can affect government policy in real ways.
UPDATED: DOE INVOKED TECHNICAL STANDARDS
The following Directive has been added to the DOE Directives Portal:
The Directives Review Board (DRB) has conducted a review of DOE Orders that invoke Technical Standards. The DRB determined which Technical Standards should be invoked; developed boilerplate language for the invoking of Technical Standards; and updated affected Orders for clarity and consistency.
The following Orders were updated to clarify which Technical Standards are invoked:
- DOE O 458.1 Chg 4 (LtdChg), Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment
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- To establish requirements to protect the public and the environment against undue risk from radiation associated with radiological activities conducted under the control of the Department of Energy (DOE) pursuant to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (AEA). Supersedes DOE O 458.1 Chg 3 (AdminChg), dated 1-15-2013.
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Take Action! LANL Plans to Release Radioactive Tritium
On Wednesday morning, the public was notified by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that releases of radioactive tritium could begin as early as Friday, September 11th. LANL tried to launch this plan last March. Communities organized against it and the project was halted. 
https://tewawomenunited.org/2020/09/action-alert-stop-radioactive-releases-at-los-alamos-national-laboratory , http://nuclearactive.org/lanl-plans-to-release-twice-the-amount-of-tritium-allowed/ , and http://nuclearactive.org/lanl-postpones-tritium-releases-due-to-global-pandemic/
If you were not signed up to receive emails from LANL’s Electronic Public Reading Room, you would not have received Wednesday morning’s notice. https://eprr.lanl.gov/ [The subscribe button is on the lower left.] The notice provided links to letters LANL submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency and the New Mexico Environment Department requesting permission to proceed with venting the four tritium containers. The containers hold lead and an estimated 114,000 curies of radioactive tritium.
The tritium is in the form of tritiated water, which harms when it is inhaled or ingested. https://ieer.org/article/energy-security/healthy-start-tritium-issue-38/
Now is the time of harvest. People are outside and breathing deeply while they bring in the harvest. The risk for breathing in particulates, pollutants, tritiated water, among other contaminants, has increased due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Smoke and ash from the Medio wildfire significantly contributed to poor air quality for weeks, which was finally knocked down on Tuesday night when the rain and snow arrived. The link between increased COVID-19 death rates and air pollution are well known.
Environment Secretary Says LANL Tritium Venting Project Puts New Mexico In Bad Situation
“Under the Triad contract, one of their performance requirements for this fiscal year is to vent five more containers that are larger, that contain more tritium, by Sept. 30. So we feel like they’re trying to get permission to vent these four containers on Friday so that they can vent the other five before the end of the fiscal year so that they can get their bonus…This is a pattern in practice by DOE – to do things in order to get the bonuses for their contractors.” – Joni Arends, executive director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety
BY: | losalamosreporter.com
The planned venting of tritium from four Flanged Tritium Waste Containers at Los Alamos National Laboratory on or after Friday, Sept. 11 has placed the state of New Mexico in a bad situation, New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) Sec. James Kenney told the Legislature’s Committee on Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Wednesday.
The Los Alamos Reporter previously published two stories on the venting project:
https://losalamosreporter.com/2020/03/23/lanl-to-conduct-tritium-venting-operation-beginning-in-april/
https://losalamosreporter.com/2020/04/03/lanl-tritium-ventilation-project-on-hold-due-to-covid-19-scope-of-work-amended-to-include-possible-secondary-venting/
“These containers have been neglected for so long by both DOE and the Environment Department. We’re in this position, which is do they vent those tritium drums, collect that emission to prevent it from being in the air and then move those drums offsite, or do we run the risk of leaving those drums onsite knowing that they are pressurized and could rupture meaning an uncontrolled amount of tritium would go out,” Kenney said. “I do not like the position our Department is in. I think this goes towards the fact that DOE did not do something sooner and it goes to the fact that our Department has been so underfunded that we don’t have the staff to go and hold people accountable to do those things in a timely manner, so we are in a very bad position.”
Big audience for protest of race training
Petersen says he tried to point out to lab officials the “blatant lies and deep immorality” in the presentations. He says he tried to teach his own classes to counter the training Sandia offered but was denied.
RYAN BOETEL / JOURNAL STAFF WRITER abqjournal.com Copyright © 2020 Albuquerque Journal
A series of forums on race offered at Sandia National Laboratories left at least one lab employee miffed enough to send an email blast to the entire staff voicing his displeasure.
And the upset electrical engineer appears to have caught the attention of the White House, which last week in a memo told all federal agencies to stop hosting similar training sessions.
Trump Reportedly Claimed That The US Built a Secret Nuke. Here’s What He’s Probably Talking About
“In all likelihood, Trump is referring to the W76-2; then again, he’s also made outlandish claims regarding U.S. military tech that haven’t stood up under scrutiny, like that the F-35 is totally invisible.”
Forget the invisible F-35 and the super-duper missile: there’s apparently a brand new weapons system that’s captured the commander-in-chief’s attention — and it’s of the nuclear variety.
According to Rage — a new book published by legendary investigative reporter Bob Woodward on the Trump administration — the president reportedly disclosed the existence of a new nuclear weapons system during a conversation about relations between the United States and North Korea.
“I have built a nuclear — a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before,” Trump reportedly said, according to the Washington Post.
“We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There’s nobody — what we have is incredible.”
The disclosure from Trump came in “the midst of reflecting upon how close the United States had come in 2017 to war with North Korea,” according to the Washington Post.
State Lawmakers: Tougher Tactics Needed to Speed Los Alamos Waste Cleanup
“The state must put teeth back into the consent order, its main source of leverage. I would like to see us rip up the [2016] consent order and become a tougher negotiator for New Mexico,”
– State Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, said the state is losing ground on cleanup because an agreement between the state and the Department of Energy was weakened four years ago, and now more waste will be generated with pit production.
BY: | santafenewmexican.com
The pace of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s legacy waste cleanup drew sharp criticism Wednesday from two state lawmakers who argued regulators should toughen oversight and consider suing federal agencies to spur quicker action.
The lab has made five shipments of higher-level nuclear waste this year to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad and hopes to move that number to 30 per year, with the aim of removing all of the lab’s legacy waste by 2027.
A U.S. Department of Energy official presented the figures to the state Radioactive and Hazardous Waste Committee on Wednesday.
“So we’re looking to greatly increase the rate of shipment,” said Steve Hoffman, who oversees the agency’s environmental management field office in Los Alamos.
But state Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, called that volume far too low, especially when compared to Idaho sending 100 to 150 waste shipments to WIPP each year.
New Mexico Frustrated With Slow Cleanup of Radioactive Waste
“We’re seeing more and more that we’re trending towards an impasse on the movement of legacy contamination from Los Alamos…If that’s our only option, then that’s an option we’re going to explore and we’re going to need to figure out how to do that in a way that yields a better result for New Mexico. Because right now we’re at the bottom of the list and that’s unacceptable.” – New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney
BY: The Associated Press, SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN | krqe.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — There’s growing frustration among New Mexico lawmakers and environmental regulators about the U.S. government’s slow pace in cleaning up contamination from decades of nuclear research and bomb-making at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The officials shared their concerns during a legislative meeting Wednesday, saying New Mexico is taking a backseat to other states and that legal action might be their only leverage against the U.S. Energy Department as it sets priorities for the nation’s multibillion-dollar cleanup program for Cold War-era waste.
Since January, only five shipments of waste have been sent from Los Alamos to the government’s underground repository in southern New Mexico. Meanwhile, the Idaho National Laboratory is sending two to three shipments a week, or more than three times the goal environmental managers at Los Alamos have set for the coming year.
Russia warns it will see any incoming missile as nuclear
“The policy document offered a detailed description of situations that could trigger the use of nuclear weapons, including the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against Russia or its allies.”
BY: The Associated Press, VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV | apnews.com
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia will perceive any ballistic missile launched at its territory as a nuclear attack that warrants a nuclear retaliation, the military warned in an article published Friday.
The harsh warning in the official military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) is directed at the United States, which has worked to develop long-range non-nuclear weapons.
The article follows the publication in June of Russia’s nuclear deterrent policy that envisages the use of atomic weapons in response to what could be a conventional strike targeting the nation’s critical government and military infrastructure.
In the Krasnaya Zvezda article, senior officers of the Russian military’s General Staff, Maj.-Gen. Andrei Sterlin and Col. Alexander Khryapin, noted that there will be no way to determine if an incoming ballistic missile is fitted with a nuclear or a conventional warhead, and so the military will see it as a nuclear attack.
“Any attacking missile will be perceived as carrying a nuclear warhead,” the article said. “The information about the missile launch will be automatically relayed to the Russian military-political leadership, which will determine the scope of retaliatory action by nuclear forces depending on the evolving situation.”
The argument reflects Russia’s longtime concerns about the development of weapons that could give Washington the capability to knock out key military assets and government facilities without resorting to atomic weapons.
Groups raise concerns about new shaft at WIPP
“The Southwest Research and Information Center is among those opposing the project. The group filed legal challenges, saying environmental officials ignored existing regulations, past agency practices and case law when giving temporary approval for contractors to begin working.”
BY SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN | santafenewmexican.com
ALBUQUERQUE — Crews working at the U.S. government’s underground nuclear waste repository in southeastern New Mexico are starting a new phase of a contentious project to dig a utility shaft that officials say will increase ventilation at the site where workers entomb the radioactive remnants of decades of bomb-making.
Officials at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad said this week the $75 million project is a top priority and that work will be done around the clock five days a week, with an additional shift on Saturdays. The shaft will eventually span more than four-tenths of a mile and connect to an underground system of passageways.
Surprising numbers in UNM report on lab’s impact
“BBER’s (UNM’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research) director Jeffrey Mitchell said in an email to a Regional Coalition official that the county financial figures show “there are some winners and some losers. I suspect that LANL was less interested in presenting that.”
BY JOURNAL NORTH EDITORIAL BOARD | abqjournal.com
A recent study by the University of New Mexico’s respected economic studies office details the huge economic impact of Los Alamos National Laboratory on New Mexico.
NCI Virtual Briefing on results from the Study to Estimate Radiation Doses and Cancer Risks Resulting from Radioactive Fallout from the Trinity Nuclear Test
| UPDATE FROM THE NCI SUMMARY:
“The data suggest that perhaps several hundred cancers, primarily thyroid cancer, have already occurred over the 75 years since the test and a small number are projected to occur in the future that would not have occurred in the absence of radiation exposure from Trinity fallout. Most of the excess cancers are projected to have occurred or will occur among residents living in Guadalupe, Lincoln, San Miguel, Socorro, and Torrance counties in 1945. Significant uncertainty in dose estimation had a substantial impact on the total uncertainty around these estimates. Most cancers that have occurred or will occur among the 1945 residents of New Mexico are likely to be cancers unrelated to exposures from Trinity fallout. Finally, with the data available, it is not possible to definitively identify the specific individuals whose cancers might be due to the radiation exposure. |
Former employees, families sue companies working on Piketon-area nuclear plant
“The lawsuit, filed last week, alleges workers and their families became ill due to the actions of U.S. Department of Energy contractors. The suit seeks a medical monitoring program to evaluate the multi-generational impact of radioactive contamination.”
Columbus, OH | Columbus Dispatch newsbreak.com
A lawsuit filed on behalf of former nuclear employees and their families accuses U.S. Department of Energy contractors of “poisoning workers and the people, land, air and water for miles” around the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant that was in southern Ohio.
The actions of DOE’s contractors released radioactive isotopes that “have created a situation akin to a creeping Chernobyl” and resulted in “injuries, sickness, disease, including cancers, damage to DNA, death, loss of and damages to property, and reduction in property values,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Columbus.
The contamination likely spread in Pike, Scioto, Lawrence, Vinton and Adams counties in Ohio, according to the lawsuit.
Study: Cancer cases likely in those exposed to atomic test
“’The nuclear detonation exposed residents of New Mexico to varying levels of radiation from radioactive fallout, depending, in part, on where they lived in the state, how much time they spent inside protective structures in the immediate months after the test, and how much radiation entered their bodies through contaminated food and water,’ a summary of the research states.”
BY: | apnews.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — After years of study, the National Cancer Institute said Tuesday that some people probably got cancer from the radioactive fallout that wafted across New Mexico after the U.S. government detonated the first atomic bomb in 1945. However, the exact number is unknown.
Energy Dept. Taking Bids for Nationwide Waste Treatment Services
The Energy Department on Monday issued its final request for proposals (RFP) for nationwide low-level and mixed low-level waste treatment services. The agency could award more than one basic ordering agreement (BOAs) for the work, according to the document.
The objectives of the BOAs are to provide Low Level Waste and Mixed Low Level Waste (including reactive metals such as lithium batteries, sodium bearing waste) Treatment services; Bulk Survey for Release Services (BSFR) services in accordance with Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) or Agreement State requirements; Development and assessment of alternative disposition strategies; Low Activity Waste (LAW) services; and Ancillary services that aid in the treatment and processing of waste, such as transportation and packaging from the point of origin to the destination (treatment facility, disposal site, or return to the generator) creating a turnkey service.
Up to 1,000 Downwinders Likely Got Cancer From First Atomic Test, Study Says
As many as 1,000 New Mexicans living in communities near Trinity Site, where the first atomic bomb was detonated 75 years ago, might have developed cancer from the radioactive fallout, says a long-awaited Cancer Institute report released Tuesday.
BY: SCOTT WYLAND | santafenewmexican.com
The institute’s findings were based on a six-year study that involved computer modeling, researching historical data and interviewing 210 elderly “downwinders” who lived close enough to the blast to suffer internal radiation exposure by ingesting contaminated milk and food.
The number of cancer victims could be less than 1,000 but is unlikely to be more, the study says.
There’s also no clear evidence the radiation was severe enough to cause genetic abnormalities that could be passed by birth to subsequent generations, the study says.
The study’s authors concede there’s much uncertainty in the report because so many years have passed since the test, the government didn’t conduct public studies of the test’s potential impacts on communities — due to the Manhattan Project’s secrecy — and cancer cases weren’t tracked nationally until the 1960s.
The report comes after decades of criticism from downwinder advocates, who have accused the federal government of refusing to acknowledge affected residents to avoid liability.