How nuclear deterrence in Europe may change
“What does nuclear deterrence look like in Europe now that NATO is unsure whether the U.S. will be a committed partner? NPR speaks with Paul Cormarie, analyst with the Rand Corporation.”
By A Martínez, NPR | March 17, 2025 abcnews.go.com
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, says he supports a 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine in theory. But he adds that Ukraine would need to accept further conditions before a deal could be finalized. Now, in the interim, European leaders are discussing ways to discourage future Russian aggression. French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed using France’s nuclear capabilities as a deterrent to Russian threats. But what does nuclear deterrence look like in Europe if NATO is unsure if the U.S. will be a committed partner?
Hanford nuclear site subcontractor, owner to pay $1.1M for COVID loan fraud
“The money was intended to retain and maintain payroll for Hanford site workers assigned to the nuclear reservation in Eastern Washington and also a few Department of Veterans Affairs workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“Within 48 hours of BNL receiving the Paycheck Protection Program loan at least $453,000 had been spent to pay off Stevenson’s personal and family debts, according to an indictment.
That included $100,000 transferred to Stevenson’s father and $48,600 to a family trust, according to court documents.
Much of the rest of the money was used to pay off credit card debt, according to the indictment.
The federal government later forgave the loan, which cleared it from having to be repaid.
BNL and Stevenson later applied for and received another Paycheck Protection Program loan of nearly $820,000.”
By, The Columbian | March 12, 2025 columbian.com
Mar. 11—A former Hanford nuclear site subcontractor and its owner will pay a total settlement of just over $1.1 million to resolve accusations they defrauded the federal government through a COVID pandemic loan program.
On Wednesday, U.S. Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima sentenced BNL Technical Services, owned by Wilson Pershing Stevenson III, to pay nearly $494,000 restitution to the federal government, as proposed in a settlement agreement.
That is in addition to $611,000 Stevenson, of Nashville, Tenn., already agreed to pay in a civil settlement to resolve his liability in the case.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester Attend the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
We had the honor of joining the Archbishop of Santa Fe, John Wester, in attending the third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons last week, March 3-7 in New York City. The archbishop gave mass to several different groups (see photos below) and spoke at the UN headquarters as part of Civil Society.
In New York City this week? Join Pax Christi members and friends at Mass with Archbishop John Wester (Santa Fe NM) on Tuesday, March 4, 6 pm, at the Church of Our Saviour, 59 Park Avenue at 38th Street. Use this link to RSVP. #TPNW #3MSP #nucleardisarmamentwww.dorothydayguild.org/WesterMass25
— Pax Christi USA (@paxchristiusa.bsky.social) 2025-03-03T16:35:50.942Z
Germany skips UN conference on banning nuclear weapons in New York
“Germany has decided not to take part in a UN conference in New York to review a landmark treaty on nuclear weapons prohibition.”
By dpa International | March 4, 2025 dpa-international.com
“The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons dates back to a time before the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine,” the Foreign Office told dpa in Berlin on Tuesday. “The intention and ambition of the treaty no longer reflect the current reality in security policy.”
The treaty was signed in 2017 and came into force in 2021. There are currently 94 signatories and 73 states parties, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
Germany does not possess nuclear weapons but is allied with three nuclear powers in NATO: the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
Berlin is not a signatory to the prohibition treaty, but it participated in previous conferences as observers.
Brief Analysis of Today’s U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments on the Illegality of Licensing Radwaste Dumps in TX and NM
Today the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission vs. Texas. At issue is whether the NRC exceeded its authority when it approved licenses for proposed “consolidated interim storage facilities” for high-level radioactive waste, and this includes highly irradiated “spent” fuel from nuclear power plants.
Two consolidated interim storage facilities are planned for western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended specifically prohibits private “interim” storage of federal spent nuclear fuel, and disallows the Department of Energy from taking title to the waste unless a permanent geologic repository is licensed, built and opened. The law intended to prevent private “interim” storage of federal radioactive waste because interim storage is much less robust than permanent storage, and would double the risk of accident or attack during transport, since consolidated “interim” storage means the waste has to be moved twice, once to the CISF and again to a permanent repository.
Broken arrows: The hidden secret behind America’s missing nuclear weapons
“Dedicated Navy divers, demolition teams, and high-powered sonar spent weeks searching the ocean floor and came up empty.”
By Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering | March 3, 2025 interestingengineering.com
Throughout history, the idea of misplacing a nuclear weapon may sound like a plot twist in an espionage novel. The United States has experienced more than a handful of such incidents. Known as “Broken Arrows,” these events typically refer to any accidents involving nuclear weapons that do not pose an immediate risk of triggering a nuclear war.
For decades, details remained hidden behind top-secret clearances. However, unclassified records reveal that the U.S. military has had a surprising number of mishaps, with some bombs still unaccounted for to this day.
What are broken arrows?
The Department of Defense defines a “Broken Arrow” as any incident involving a U.S. nuclear weapon or warhead that results in accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft, or loss of the weapon. From 1950 to 1980, official sources cite 32 Broken Arrow incidents, but there may have been more, given the secrecy surrounding nuclear matters.
Christie Brinkley: Don’t let the US resume nuclear weapon tests that ended decades ago
“The United States and other nuclear powers are now moving closer to resuming nuclear weapons tests, decades after testing ended. This highly disturbing trend must be halted.”
By Christie Brinkley Special to The Kansas City Star Miami Herald | March 3, 2025 miamiherald.com
Since the atomic age, 2,056 nuclear weapons have been detonated, 528 of them above the ground. The United States and Soviet Union accounted for about 85% of these tests. The explosive power of atmospheric tests equaled 29,000 Hiroshima bombs. Airborne radioactive fallout circled the globe, re-entered the environment through precipitation, and entered human bodies through food and water.
Cold War bomb testing was part of a massive increase in the number of nuclear weapons, which peaked at more than 60,000. After nuclear war was barely avoided during the Cuban missile crisis, public pressure convinced leaders to ban all above-ground tests in 1963 — a treaty that has never been violated.
The test ban treaty was a huge achievement for peace, beginning eased tensions between nuclear nations. It also was a landmark for public health. A study by St. Louis residents and scientists found an enormous buildup of radioactive strontium-90 levels in baby teeth — 63 times higher in children born in 1963 compared to those born in 1950.
LISTEN LIVE TO U.S. SUPREME COURT ORAL ARGUMENTS ON THE ILLEGALITY OF LICENSING RADWASTE DUMPS IN TX AND NM
“The case pits the nuclear industry’s push for CISFs against the interests of fossil fuel companies which object to high-level radioactive waste dumped in their drilling/fracking areas, the state governments of Texas and New Mexico, which have passed laws prohibiting importation of nuclear waste to their states, and cities along the transport routes which object to it being shipped through their jurisdictions. Their amicus briefs in the case are posted here.”
For immediate release
MEDIA ALERT for Wednesday, March 5, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C.,
WHAT? Wednesday morning, March 5, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Nuclear Regulatory Commission vs. Texas. At issue in the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the U.S.) proceeding is whether the NRC exceeded its authority when it approved licenses for proposed “consolidated interim storage facilities” for high-level radioactive waste including highly irradiated “spent” fuel from nuclear power plants. Two CISFs are planned for western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended specifically prohibits private “interim” storage of federal spent nuclear fuel, and disallows the Department of Energy from taking title to the waste (which would be necessary for DOE to transport it to CISFs), unless and until a permanent geologic repository is licensed, built and opened to receive the waste. The law intended to prevent private “interim” storage of federal radwaste, which is much less robust than permanent storage, and would double the risk of accident or attack during transport, since consolidated “interim” storage necessitates moving the waste twice, once to the CISF and again to a permanent repository. The NRC approved recent CISF license applications despite the law, saying it anticipated Congress would change it in the future. But the federal Fifth Circuit court ruled that the NRC didn’t have that authority. If the Supreme Court strikes that ruling down, it could open the floodgates for thousands of shipments of spent fuel from nuclear power plants across the US, through many states, to CISFs in Texas and New Mexico.
Expanded Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Production is Immoral – Spend Nuclear Weapons “Modernization” Money Ethically ELSEWHERE
Why the nation’s nuclear waste may eventually be headed to northwest Colorado
Nuclear waste is piling up at power plants around the country, and we have no idea where to put it. Many states are aggressively fighting plans for new storage facilities.
But northwest Colorado is quietly opening the door.
ByScott Franz, Erin O’Toole, Brad Turner | February 22, 2025 kunc.org
KUNC’s investigative reporter Scott Franz recently traveled around rural Colorado talking with people about what nuclear waste storage could do for the local economy – and also interviewing folks who are dead set against that idea.
On this special edition of In The NoCo, we’ve combined all of Scott’s reporting from the past few months into a single episode. You can also see photos and check out more on this investigation.
Arms Control Association – Trump Regains Control Over Nuclear Policy: What’s Next?
It has been barely a month since Inauguration day, but it is apparent that Donald Trump is determined to reshape U.S. foreign policy, radically alter alliance relationships, and upend Washington’s approach toward key adversaries, like Russia, in ways that are not yet clear.
Arms Control Association | February 21, 2025 armscontrol.org
And here at home, Trump’s brash assertion of executive power is putting our nation’s democratic institutions and the rule of domestic law at risk, in part by altering or dismantling key government departments,agencies and functions, all without congressional approval.
All of this makes our mission to provide reliable information and sound policy solutions even more important and difficult.
The Arms Control Association has a clear and focused strategy to reduce the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and other WMD. Many of these priorities are outlined in this ACA-organized January 28 communication to all members of Congress that was endorsed by 16 of our partner organizations and leaders.
Like many others, however, we are still sorting out how to adjust to and contend with the post-Inauguration political dynamics.
But we must and we will, because critical, weapons-related security decisions lie ahead:
- So long as Russia’s assault on Ukraine continues, there is still a heightened risk of nuclear weapons use, and there are narrowing prospects for a deal to maintain limits on the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals after New START expires in one year.
- Although Trump has decried exorbitant military expenditures, the authors of Project 2025, the 920-page manifesto crafted by the Heritage Foundation and others, want the United States to spend even more than the current $756 billion ten-year price tag for nuclear modernization in order to increase the size and diversity of the U.S. arsenal. China and Russia are watching and will surely respond to any U.S. nuclear buildup.
- Project 2025 also calls for preparing to resume U.S. nuclear explosive testing for the first time since 1992. Should the United States do so, it would open the door to nuclear testing by other states, unravel the CTBT, and blow apart the global nonproliferation system at a time of increasing nuclear danger.
- Since Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Tehran has expanded its capacity to produce weapons-grade nuclear material and reduced international inspectors’ access. Trump says he wants a nuclear deal; Iran’s president says he wants a nuclear deal. But time is short. Without a deal to scale back tensions and Iran’s nuclear capacity, we could see renewed international sanctions by October, Iranian withdrawal from the NPT, and/or an attempt by Israel to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites.
How exactly the second Trump administration and the new Congress will try to navigate all these nuclear-related challenges ahead is not yet clear — but if Project 2025 becomes the blueprint for U.S. nuclear weapons policy, we are in big trouble.
But, it may also be possible to steer us toward a safer course.
Trump wants to initiate denuclearization talks with Russia and China
On Thursday, President Donald Trump signaled that he wants to engage with Russia and China on denuclearization efforts.
By Erik English, BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS | February 14, 2025 thebulletin.org
“There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons. We already have so many,” Trump said from the White House.
“You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons, and China’s building nuclear weapons.” The number of nuclear weapons the United States and Russia can have is established by New START, which expires in 2026. Without a new agreement, nuclear states could begin to build up their arsenals for the first time since the Cold War. “Hopefully, there’ll never be a time when we need those weapons,” Trump said. “That’s going to be a very sad day, that’s going to be probably oblivion.”
Share Your Experiences at Los Alamos National Laboratory
The New York Times would like to hear from you about workplace protocols and safety measures at LANL.
By Alicia Inez Guzmán | Alicia Inez Guzmán is reporting on the nuclear industry in New Mexico as part of The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship – THE NEW YORK TIMES February 11, 2025 nytimes.com
More voices, better journalism. The questionnaire you are reading is just one tool we use to help ensure our work reflects the world we cover. By inviting readers to share their experiences, we get a wide range of views that often lead to a more deeply reported article. We make every effort to contact you before publishing any part of your submission, and your information is secure. Here’s more on how it works and why it’s good for us and you.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has recently embarked on the “new Manhattan Project” — a hiring spree and multibillion dollar expansion to build plutonium bomb cores for nuclear weapons.
The Times is writing about this new mission and how the lab is keeping workers safe, reporting accidents and environmental contamination and making needed upgrades to key facilities, including in Technical Area 55, the heart of bomb core production.
Have you or someone you know worked at TA-55 or another “hot site” and experienced a workplace accident or been exposed to plutonium, beryllium or another radioactive or toxic substance on the job? What safety measures were in place? Were there follow-up health assessments?
Please answer the questions using the form:
LANL Site-Wide EIS Hearings in Santa Fe and Los Alamos Filled with Loud Protest and Vehement Dissent: Nuclear Weapons are IMMORAL
In this Site-Wide EIS we’re given three options: Expanded nuclear weapons programs (hypocritically called the no action alternative), then we’re presented with yet more expanded nuclear weapons programs, and the third alternative is even more expanded nuclear weapons programs. What we really need is a genuine alternative in this Site-Wide, and I hope that citizens will repeatedly bring this up. We need a TRUE ALTERNATIVE in which the US begins to show global leadership towards nuclear disarmament that it promised to in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that should be reflected in the sitewide which shows just passive maintenance of the stockpile. We don’t need Pit Production because it’s for NEW designs – NOT to ensure the safety and reliability of the existing stockpile. The US, for our own national security and global security, we need to lead the world towards global nuclear disarmament – and this Site-Wide EIS does the opposite.
The hearings in Santa Fe and Los Alamos on February 11 and February 13, 2025, respectively, both had virtual participation options. The attendees online and in person were equally vehement in protesting the “rigged game” we’re given with this SWEIS and decrying the fact that there is no alternative besides increased nuclear weapons production.
And read an exceprt from the Archbishop of Santa Fe, John Wester’s comments:
“As we all know, we’re in an accelerating new nuclear arms race that’s made even more dangerous because of artificial intelligence, multiple nuclear actors and hypersonic delivery systems. It’s an already scary situation that has become even scarier, and what concerns me is that Los Alamos and Santa Fe play a key role in naturally fostering and promoting this new nuclear arms race – a race which I believe is an affront to all that is good and holy, all from our perspective that God has placed in us to live in harmony with one another. Nuclear weapons pose one of the greatest threats to that harmony. I think it’s important to know what I’m learning more and more about is that expanded plutonium pit production is not simply to maintain the safety and reliability of our existing so-called deterrence. I think it’s important that people are aware that it’s really for new design nuclear weapons for this new particular armed race. I think it’s important that that people recognize that deterrence is not the way to go. In that light, I would say obviously for me is a Catholic Bishop, Pope Francis I think has really changed the whole moral landscape of looking at nuclear weapons. On the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, Pope Francis declared that the very possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. As Catholics this was an extremely important shift there. The 1983 United states conference of Catholic Bishops did allow for deterrence – it was promoting disarmament but made caveats for deterrence. But Pope Francis has taken that off the table in saying that even possessing nuclear weapons is immoral, it’s unethical. One of the main reasons for this church’s shift on this was that the nuclear weapons powers really have failed in their pledge in 1970 when they joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The TPNW came about because of that failure, and so it seems to me then based on what Pope Francis said, that if possessing nuclear weapons is immoral, then expanding plutonium pit cores and modernizing our weapons systems in order to be more involved in the new nuclear arms race is also immoral. This policy is unethical. Now I want to be careful here, I am not saying that anyone working at Los Alamos or Sandia or Lawrence Livermore in California, I’m not judging them or saying there are immoral – that’s a different matter in one’s conscience. I’m saying that the policy is involved and the Pope said that nuclear weapons themselves are intrinsically immoral. I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind, that that we need to be moving toward disarmament and that if we’re not, if that’s not our trajectory, rather if it’s just to build up our defenses, then that’s an immoral buildup.”
Gearing Up for the Public Hearings on the LANL Draft Sitewide Environmental Impact Statement: Pit Production at LANL
“Nuclear Watch New Mexico hosted a workshop on February 6 on the newly released Draft Sitewide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to present information and elicit discussion on this NEPA process that Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuke Watch, referred to as a “rigged game” at the beginning of the workshop. What that means will become evident as I review the part of the workshop I attended.”
By Kay Matthews, La Jicarita | February 7, 2025 lajicarita.wordpress.com
Archbishop John Wester, an outspoken critic of nuclear weapons proliferation under the guise of nuclear deterrence instead of disarmament spoke briefly to open the discussion. Quoting Pope Francis, he said, “possessing nuclear weapons is immoral.” He then said, “Pit production is immoral.” His only qualification is that it’s the policy that’s immoral, not the people who promote it. We’ve failed to uphold already existing treaties and failed to implement new ones. He’ll be going to the United Nations in March for a meeting, Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and to Japan in August to meet with his partners in the World Without Nuclear Weapons.
Coghlan explained that next week the Department of Energy (DOE) and the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will hold public hearings, as required by NEPA, on the LANL SWEIS, in Santa Fe, Española, and Los Alamos. He cautioned that while we should all be “cynical” about the process, we need to go ahead and protest the fact that all three alternatives provided in the SWEIS expand pit production, just at different amounts. The process is rigged because the DOE and NNSA failed to update a 2008 Environmental Impact Statement before pit production began at LANL (the other nuclear facility, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, is slated to produce 50 pits a year but is completely unprepared for pit production).
The guest speaker was Dylan Spaulding, Senior Scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists…
NukeWatch Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide EIS Workshop – February 6, 2025
Full Video Recording: NukeWatch Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide EIS Workshop |
NukeWatch Presentation: Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide EIS Workshop |
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NukeWatch Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide EIS Workshop |
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In Memoriam: Ken Mayers
We here at NukeWatch will dearly miss Ken’s weekly presence at the corner vigil to protest Nuclear Weapons in Santa Fe.
Locally, Ken was co-founder of the Santa Fe Chapter of Veterans for Peace and an active member of Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine. Ken worked with the local chapter of US Combatants for Peace and the Justice Council of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Santa Fe where he was also an enthusiastic baritone and co-founder of the NM Peace Choir.
A Celebration of Ken’s life will be held Friday, April 4 beginning at 12 noon at the corner of Sandoval and West Alameda, (Santa Fe’s weekly vigil to protest Nuclear Weapons), followed by lunch and a hybrid service at the UU Congregation, 107 West Barcelona Street, Santa Fe, NM.
For those wanting to pay tribute to Ken, please consider planting a tree through A Living Tribute (https://shop.alivingtribute.org/) or make a donation in his memory to the Santa Fe Joan Duffy Chapter of Veterans for Peace https://www.vfp-santafe.org/
Ken was a lifelong, passionate defender of peace. Read more:
Los Alamos’ plutonium pit production of 30 annually for Sentinel may have to wait beyond 2026
As the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration awaits its marching orders from the President Donald Trump (R) administration, the Los Alamos National Laboratory is now saying it will get to an annual plutonium pit production goal of 30 “ASAP.”
Exchange Monitor | January 31, 2025 counterpunch.com
Such pits are the triggers for thermonuclear weapons…
Step inside the secret lab where America tests its nukes
“”The risk is significant,” says Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. The talk of testing comes at a time when nuclear weapons are resurgent: Russia is designing nuclear weapons to attack satellites and obliterate seaports; China is dramatically expanding its nuclear arsenal; and the U.S. is undergoing a major modernization of its nuclear warheads. After years of declining nuclear stockpiles, the world looks poised to begin increasing the number and types of nuclear weapons being deployed.”
By Geoff Brumfiel, NPR | January 29, 2025 npr.org
A half-mile from here, on the morning of May 8, 1953, an Air Force bomber dropped a Mk-6D nuclear bomb from a height of 19,000 feet above the desert floor. It exploded with a yield of 27 kilotons of TNT — creating a shockwave that warped the bridge. The test, code-named “Encore,” was one of several conducted here to see what, if anything, in the civilian world could survive a nuclear blast (the answer is, apparently, not much).
Continue reading
Exchange Monitor: Compromise reached on pit production suit environmental review
“The National Nuclear Security Administration and environmental plaintiffs settled a lawsuit that could put a pause on plutonium pit production efforts at Savannah River Site if approved.”
By Exchange Monitor | January 29, 2025 exchangemonitor.com
The agreement, made public Jan. 16, would leave Los Alamos National Laboratory as the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) sole pit factory until an environmental impact statement is completed as part of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). The process is expected to take at least two-and-a-half years, according to the document.
Until a record of decision is issued from the environmental review, NNSA is enjoined from installing classified equipment or introducing nuclear material at the Savannah River plant, according to a press release from the citizen groups. Actual pit production at Savannah River is not expected before the 2030s, according to NNSA.
The plaintiffs alleged in the lawsuit from 2021 that NNSA and DOE would violate NEPA by producing plutonium pits at Los Alamos and Savannah River Site without conducting a proper environmental review. A federal judge agreed with the plaintiffs in September, but instigated months of back and forth between both parties by forcing them to agree to a solution themselves.
The settlement requires NNSA to produce a new programmatic environmental impact statement within two-and-a-half years. Until that is complete in a process that would include public hearings nationwide and public comment on the draft of the statement, NNSA would not be able to process nuclear material at Savannah River’s plutonium facility.
The plaintiffs in the suit include environmental watch group Savannah River Site Watch of South Carolina; Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Site Watch; The Gullah Geechee Sea Island Coalition, a group representing the interests of some descendants of enslaved Africans dwelling on the lower Atlantic coast; Nuclear Watch New Mexico of Santa Fe, N.M.; and the Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, of Livermore, Calif.
Hot Plutonium Pit Bomb Redux
“Plaintiffs including Savannah River Site Watch, South Carolina Environmental Law Project Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Tri-Valley CAREs forced NNSA to halt construction on many phases of its plutonium pit facility near Aiken, SC, to hold public scoping meetings, solicit public comments, and produce a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement within thirty months.”
By Mark Muhich, Counterpunch | January 31, 2025 counterpunch.com
Last week U.S. District Judge Mary Lewis Geiger, South Carolina, faulted the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Agency for ignoring the National Environmental Protection Act and rushing plans to fabricate plutonium pit bombs at Savannah River Site, near Aiken, South Carolina.
Newly designed plutonium pits will serve as “triggers” for the next generation of nuclear warheads mounted atop Sentinel, the next generation of intercontinental ballistic missile, and for new submarine-launched nuclear weapons. Combined, these projects comprise major components in the trillion-dollar “modernization” of the U.S. strategic deterrence force.
Continue reading
Doomsday Clock: It is now 89 seconds to midnight
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | January 28, 2025 thebulletin.com
In 2024, humanity edged ever closer to catastrophe. Trends that have deeply concerned the Science and Security Board continued, and despite unmistakable signs of danger, national leaders and their societies have failed to do what is needed to change course. Consequently, we now move the Doomsday Clock from 90 seconds to 89 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to catastrophe. Our fervent hope is that leaders will recognize the world’s existential predicament and take bold action to reduce the threats posed by nuclear weapons, climate change, and the potential misuse of biological science and a variety of emerging technologies.
In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, we send a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.
In regard to nuclear risk, the war in Ukraine, now in its third year, looms over the world; the conflict could become nuclear at any moment because of a rash decision or through accident or miscalculation. Conflict in the Middle East threatens to spiral out of control into a wider war without warning. The countries that possess nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilization. The nuclear arms control process is collapsing, and high-level contacts among nuclear powers are totally inadequate given the danger at hand. Alarmingly, it is no longer unusual for countries without nuclear weapons to consider developing arsenals of their own—actions that would undermine longstanding nonproliferation efforts and increase the ways in which nuclear war could start.
U.S. Senators Luján, Hawley, Heinrich, Schmitt, Reintroduce RECA To Give Nuclear Radiation Victims Compensation
By Carol A. Clark, Los Alamos Daily Post | January 24, 2025 ladailypost.com
Despite the Senate passing this bill, the House of Representatives failed to pass the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) reauthorization before its expiration deadline in the 118th Congress.
“In New Mexico and across the country, thousands sacrificed to contribute to our national security. Today, individuals affected by nuclear weapons testing, downwind radiation exposure, and uranium mining are still waiting to receive the justice they are owed,” Sen. Luján said.
“It is unacceptable that so many who have gotten sick from radiation exposure have been denied compensation by Congress. Despite having passed RECA legislation twice through the Senate with broad bipartisan support, and securing the support of the previous administration, I was disheartened that Speaker Johnson refused a vote on RECA to help victims. This Congress, I am proud to partner with Senator Hawley again to extend and expand RECA. RECA is a bipartisan priority and I am hopeful that we will once again get it through the Senate and hope the Speaker commits to getting victims the compensation they are owed.”
Trump wants nuclear reduction talks with China, Russia
Trump recounted talks with Putin ahead of the 2020 U.S. election about denuclearization talks and how “China would have come along.”
“We want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think that’s very possible,” Trump said.
By Laura Kelly, The Hill | January 23, 2025 thehill.com
President Trump while addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday said that he wants to hold talks with Russia and China about reducing nuclear weapon stockpiles.
Trump during his first term failed to bring China into negotiations to extend a nuclear arms treaty with Russia, called New START, which places key limits on deployed nuclear weapons and expires February 2026.
U.S. and Russian participation in the treaty effectively froze during the Biden administration, as Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to impose costs on Washington for supporting Ukraine militarily.
Remember the Downwinders
Today, Jan. 27 is a National Day of Remembrance for Downwinders. Nuclear testing by the U.S. government started in New Mexico with the Trinity Test in July 1945, and the Crossroads Series of three tests followed in the Pacific in 1946. The United States took part in nuclear testing as part of the escalating Cold War arms race, and nuclear weapons proliferated. Americans working and living downwind from nuclear testing sites became sick and killed by the radiation exposure generated from the aboveground atomic tests in Nevada, which began on January 27, 1951 and ended on July 17, 1962. With each nuclear test, radioactive fallout spread globally. Of course, downwinders are not only American. At the so-called “Pacific Proving Grounds” in the Marshall Islands, 67 nuclear weapons were detonated between 1945 and 1962.
From GUAM PACIFIC DAILY NEWS 1/27/25:
“It became a site of unimaginable destruction that did not stop at the blast zones. The radioactive fallout spread across the Pacific, settling on many islands like ours.” — Guam Senator Therese Terlaje
Seven of the top 10 adult cancers on Guam are now recognized as compensable for radiation exposure by the federal government, the senator noted.
Honoring Black Leaders in Disarmament
Russia Nuclear Update a project based at the MIT Security Studies Program that produces fact-based visual content on the threats posed by nuclear weapons, has shared a fantastic set of content that highlights the vital role that Black leaders have played in arms control and nuclear disarmament in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month.
“50 Faces of Black Leaders” honors the many contributions of civil rights and other leaders who opposed nuclear war. This video content is provided in vertical and horizontal formats and is free of charge.
Russia Nuclear Update (MIT) | January 17, 2025 russianuclearupdate.org
The individuals featured in this series include both contemporary figures like Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, and past generations, including Coretta Scott King, Bayard Rustin, and iconic artists.
Historic Settlement Reached in NEPA Lawsuit Over Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Core Production
Nonprofit public interest groups have reached an historic settlement agreement with the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). This is the successful result of a lawsuit against NNSA over its failure to complete a programmatic environmental impact statement on the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This agreement and a joint motion to dismiss have been submitted to Judge Mary Lewis Geiger of the Federal District of South Carolina. Should the Court enter the dismissal and retain jurisdiction to enforce the settlement, the agreement will go into effect.
This lawsuit was first filed in June 2021 by co-plaintiffs Savannah River Site Watch of Columbia, SC; Nuclear Watch New Mexico of Santa Fe, NM; Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs), based in Livermore, CA; and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition of coastal Georgia. NNSA promptly moved to have the case dismissed which in February 2023 Judge Lewis rejected, calling her decision “not a close call.”
In September 2024, Judge Lewis ruled that DOE and NNSA had violated NEPA by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with their plan to produce plutonium pits, a critical component of nuclear weapons, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and, for the first time ever, at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. The Court found that the plan’s purpose had fundamentally changed from NNSA’s earlier analyses which had not considered simultaneous pit production at two sites. Judge Lewis directed the Defendants and Plaintiffs to prepare a joint proposal for an appropriate remedy which fostered additional negotiations.
Anti-nuclear advocates, feds, compromise on pit production lawsuit
“We’re generally satisfied [with the terms],” said Nuclear Watch New Mexico executive director Jay Coghlan.
But what about the other half of the two-site plan?
“The fish that got away is Los Alamos,” Coghlan said.
Alaina Mencinger | January 17, 2025 santafenewmexican.com
The National Nuclear Security Administration and anti-nuclear advocates have reached agreement in a lawsuit over the National Environmental Protection Act that could temporarily halt plutonium pit production efforts at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
If approved, the proposed agreement, reached Thursday, would leave Los Alamos National Laboratory as the agency’s only pit production site until a far-reaching environmental impact statement can be completed, which is expected to take at least 2½ years.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico and other groups around the country alleged in a 2021 lawsuit the federal government had violated the National Environmental Protection Act in the course of deciding to produce plutonium pits, the trigger device for nuclear weapons, at both Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site.
Feds release statement on LANL expansion possibilities
Despite the name, even the no action plan means growth for LANL — just a smaller amount. Given already-approved projects, the lab’s footprint is estimated to grow 4% under the no action plan and include increased demands for water and energy.
That has Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, feeling like the process is “rigged” — and too late, given that the plan to restart pit production was approved before a site-wide environmental impact statement was drafted to weigh the impacts.
“It’s a choice between expanded nuclear weapons programs, yet more expanded nuclear weapons programs, or far more expanded nuclear weapons programs,” Coghlan said. “And all the while, these are for new designs. None of this is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing, extensively tested stockpile. It’s this is all about new design nuclear weapons.”
Alaina Mencinger | January 10, 2025 santafenewmexican.com
As Los Alamos National Laboratory takes on a starring role in a plan to update the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the National Nuclear Security Administration is looking at what future operations of the lab might look like for the environment.
On Friday, NNSA released a draft site-wide environmental impact statement about LANL’s ongoing operations, the first since 2008. In the 17 years since, LANL’s budget has more than doubled and hundreds of new employees have been added, according to the statement.
The draft statement includes three visions for LANL’s future: a no action plan, a plan to modernize operations and a plan to expand operations. NNSA’s preferred choice is to grow operations; questions sent to the agency were not immediately returned.
New Draft LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement is Released
NNSA’s Preferred Future for the Lab is Radically Expanded Nuclear Weapons Programs
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has finally released its Draft Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for Continued Operation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. This is more than two years after it was first announced and sixteen years after the last site-wide EIS. During that time the Lab has become more and more a nuclear weapons production site for the new global nuclear arms race. Accordingly, the central point of the new draft LANL SWEIS is “NNSA has identified the Expanded Operations Alternative as the preferred alternative for the continuing operations of LANL.” Draft LANL SWEIS, page S-13.
As policy background, the draft LANL SWEIS pays lip service to the 1970 NonProliferation Treaty (NPT):
“In Article VI of the NPT, treaty parties “undertake to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament…” The U.S. takes this commitment seriously and has emphasized dedication to both the long-term goal of eliminating nuclear weapons and the requirement that the U.S. has modern, flexible, and resilient nuclear capabilities that are safe and secure, until such a time as nuclear weapons can prudently be eliminated from the world.” P. 1-7.
Left unsaid is that no nuclear power, including the United States, has ever even tried to enter into good faith negotiations toward nuclear weapons disarmament, pledged to more than a half-century ago. Instead, all nuclear weapons states are now engaged in massive “modernization” programs to keep nuclear weapons forever, leading to today’s accelerating nuclear weapons arms race. Also, very much left unsaid is the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, ratified by 73 countries, nearing its fourth anniversary since it went into effect.
Independent Review of Chromium Groundwater Contamination Fails to Make Final Cleanup Recommendation
After 20 Years Los Alamos Lab Still Doesn’t Know Size of Plume
At Present Rate Cleanup Will Take More Than a Century
On December 30, 2024, in the middle of the holiday season, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) posted the report Independent Review of the Chromium Interim Measures Remediation System to its largely unknown Legacy Cleanup Electronic Public Reading Room. This report attempts to address the Lab’s extensive contamination of the region’s deep groundwater aquifer by a large plume of hexavalent chromium, whose potentially serious human health effects (including cancer) was the subject of the popular movie Erin Brockovich.
LANL’s chromium contamination plume is at least one mile long, a half mile wide and 100 feet thick.[1] It is commonly regarded as the Lab’s most serious environmental threat. One drinking water supply well for Los Alamos County has been shut down because of the plume. Lab maps of the contamination depict it as abruptly stopping at the border of San Ildefonso Pueblo, which is highly unlikely.
The bottom line of the newly released chromium report is:
“…at this time the plume is not sufficiently characterized to design a final remedy… data gaps and uncertainties need to be addressed before committing to an alternative or final remedy.”
This is a full two decades after the chromium plume was first reported.
Santa Fe New Mexican: Report urges return to injecting treated water into chromium plume near LANL
“At the present rate of extraction … that’s going to take more than a century to complete,” said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico.
The group is advocating for additional measures to speed cleanup, including pumping or trucking treated groundwater uphill, flushing the contamination at the source and installing more monitoring wells to better understand the size and depth of the plume.
“Weapons programs have doubled,” Coghlan said. “In that [time], the length of time to clean up, cost to clean up, keeps rising.”
Alaina Mencinger | December 31, 2024, Updated Jan 3, 2025 santafenewmexican.com
An independent review team is recommending federal and state agencies resume pumping, treating and re-injecting water from a plume of carcinogenic contaminants that is reaching toward San Ildefonso Pueblo.
But two decades after the plume’s discovery near Los Alamos National Laboratory, questions remain about how wide and deep the plume extends — and those questions could delay additional cleanup steps.
“Data gaps and uncertainties need to be addressed before committing to an alternative or final remedy,” the review panel stated in its final report, released this week.
Nuclear envoys of South Korea, US, Japan discuss NK missile launch over phone
“It constitutes a clear violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and poses a serious threat to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and the international community,” Seoul’s foreign ministry said.
The Korea Herald | January 6, 2025 koreaherald.com
The nuclear envoys of South Korea, the United States and Japan condemned North Korea’s latest missile launch in their phone talks Monday, vowing close coordination against any future provocations by the recalcitrant regime.
Lee Jun-il, director general for Korean Peninsula policy, discussed the North’s launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, Seth Bailey and Akihiro Okochi, respectively, Seoul’s foreign ministry said.
The South’s military said the North fired a suspected hypersonic missile into the East Sea, marking its first provocation this year ahead of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The launch also coincided with bilateral talks between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul in Seoul.
The New Yorker: New Mexico’s Nuclear Weapons Boom
On a recent Wednesday, ten students filed into a classroom at Northern New Mexico College, in the town of Española, to learn about the dangers of nuclear radiation. The students ranged in age from nineteen to forty-four. Most of them were in a program designed to train radiation-control technicians to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, which is once again rapidly expanding to supply the nation with nuclear weapons.
Los Alamos was built in secret during the Second World War—J. Robert Oppenheimer directed the lab there as part of the Manhattan Project. The town hovers high above the Española valley, on a handsome mesa called the Pajarito Plateau. Originally, the only way to access the enclave was through two gates. Today, it accepts visitors but remains a company town, housing many of the lab’s scientists and high-level staffers. The community has a population of about thirteen thousand, and boasts one of the nation’s densest concentrations of millionaires. In New Mexico, such wealth is rare. Española, which sits on the Rio Grande and is a twenty-five-minute drive away, has a median household income of fifty thousand dollars, a poverty rate approaching twenty per cent, and an entrenched fentanyl crisis.
SEE MORE:
Working Together, We Can Meet Enormous Challenges
Dear Friends,
As we look back on 2024, Nuclear Watch New Mexico hopes you had a wonderful year. We wish you peace and prosperity. Given uncertain times ahead, we are confident that by working together we can meet the enourmous challenges that are in store for us in 2025.
Together, we can resist provocative nuclear weapons programs that are helping to fuel a new arms race. A prime example is the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores at both the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. NukeWatch NM is leading the effort to compel legally required public review of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) most expensive program ever (but has no credible cost estimates). New pit production is not needed because it is for new weapons designs, not to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing, extensively tested nuclear stockpile.
Together we can watchdog LANL cleanup. Please join us next year for public hearings where we will oppose LANL’s plans to “cap-and-cover” existing radioactive and toxic wastes, leaving them permanently buried in unlined pits and shafts as a perpetual threat to groundwater.
We ask for your help in compelling the Department of Energy to stop expansion of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southern New Mexico. WIPP’s mission is fundamentally changing from cleanup to direct support of the new arms race as the dump for new radioactive plutonium wastes from expanding nuclear weapons production. See how to make a difference at https://stopforeverwipp.org/home
Together, we can make progress toward a future nuclear weapons-free world! With deep appreciation, we thank those who have already contributed. If you haven’t given yet, please know that your support is vital to our ongoing work. Your generous tax deductible donation can be mailed to Nuclear Watch NM, 903 W. Alameda #325, Santa Fe, NM 87501, or made online at nukewatch.org/donate/
Our sincere gratitude and best wishes for the coming year,
Jay Coghlan, Executive Director
Scott Kovac, Research Director
Sophie Stroud, Digital Content Manager
P.S.: If you’re so inclined, please go to https://www.armscontrol.org/acpoy/2024 to vote for the 2024 Arms Control Person(s) of the Year. Savannah River Site Watch, Tri-Valley CAREs, the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, the South Carolina Environmental Law Project and NukeWatch NM are nominees for their lawsuit to compel the NNSA to complete a nation-wide programmatic environmental impact statement on expanded plutonium pit production.
New Piece in the Interactive Series from The New York Times: The President’s Arsenal
This article is part of the Opinion series At the Brink, about the threat of nuclear weapons in an unstable world. Read the opening story here.
SEE VIDEO OF THE RECENT ELECTION NIGHT VANDENBERG MISSILE LAUNCH FROM OUR FRIENDS AT TRI-VALLEY CARES:
Note: This content is not part of the original NYT article.
By the New York Times Editorial Board – THE NEW YORK TIMES December 17, 2024 nytimes.com
This is an intercontinental ballistic missile the U.S. Air Force is launching off the shores of California.
The missile doesn’t carry a nuclear warhead — it’s just a test.
In 30 minutes, it will hit a target in the ocean over 4,000 miles away.
On Jan. 20, Donald Trump will regain control of these weapons.
And he’s getting them at a very volatile time in history.
Judges find uranium plan near Bears Ears National Monument in Utah violates law
On October 25, 2024, two administrative judges ruled that the federal government’s approval of a plan to expand Daneros Mine had violated the law. The judges ordered the attorneys in the case to provide more information so that the judges can determine what the remedy should be.
The Interior Board of Land Appeals issued an order that the plan to expand the mine violated the law because it failed to include an adequate monitoring and response plan to detect and manage groundwater from a perched aquifer below the surface of the mine, and that water from the aquifer could potentially leak into the underground mine and become contaminated through contact with uranium ore or other harmful materials. That’s important because the mine sits fewer than 25 miles as water flows from the Colorado River, on which 40 million people rely.
By Tim Peterson, The Grand Canyon Trust | December 16, 2024 grandcanyontrust.org
After six years, there’s a speck of light at the end of the tunnel for a legal case challenging Daneros uranium mine, a controversial uranium mine on public lands near Bears Ears National Monument.
Perched below the towering walls of Wingate Mesa above Red Canyon and Fry Canyon, the Daneros Mine site and lands around it were proposed for inclusion in Bears Ears National Monument by the five tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition in 2015. When Bears Ears was designated in 2016, Daneros ended up outside the monument’s boundaries, but only by about three miles.
Uranium-ore hauling raises concerns about the risk of accidents and contamination. And uranium mining itself has a history of contaminating water, air, and land.
Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons Congratulates Nihon Hidankyo for Nobel Peace Prize
Gratitude to the Norwegian Nobel Committee for Recognizing the Cries and Witness of those Who Suffered the Effects of the Atomic Bombings
Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Japan; Santa Fe, NM; Seattle, WA – December 10, 2024 – As founding diocesan bishops of the Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons, we are grateful to The Norwegian Nobel Committee for awarding Nihon Hidankyo this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons | December 10, 2024 pwnw.org
For far too long, the cries of all those who have suffered the effects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been muted by the false narrative that countries need to build their nuclear weapon capacity to “keep the peace.” In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The Hibakusha of Nihon Hidankyo have been giving witness for decades to the folly of nuclear weapons and to the threat that they pose to human civilization as we know it.
We congratulate the Nihon Hidankyo for earning this year’s peace prize. May their call for the elimination of nuclear weapons be heard ever more clearly and change many people’s hearts in our war-torn world. May the souls of the victims of the atomic bombings rest in peace and rejoice in our work together for peace.
ARCHBISHOP PAUL D. ETIENNE of Seattle
ARCHBISHOP PETER MICHIAKI NAKAMURA of Nagasaki
BISHOP ALEXIS SHIRAH of Hiroshima
ARCHBISHOP EMERITUS JOSEPH MITSUAKI TAKAMI of Nagasaki
Nuclear News Archive – 2022
$61 million in refunds for customers in SC nuclear debacle
Four executives of the utility or the company that was building the reactors have been indicted or have pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the failure.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina judge has approved a second round of refunds for customers of a utility that poured billions of dollars into two nuclear power plants that never produced a watt of power.
About $61 million is being set aside for Dominion Energy South Carolina after the utility sold a number of properties as part of the settlement of a class-action lawsuit by 1.1 million of its customers over the never completed plants at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station near Columbia.
Eventually, our nuclear luck will run out
Putin might not use nukes. But someday, someone will.
“The war in Ukraine should, if nothing else, push us to take stock of the inhuman policies that keep total destruction a perpetual option. If we can’t act now, when the risk of the worst-case scenario has become horrifyingly real, will we ever act?”
BY DAVID FARIS| April 28, 2022 theweek.com
As fears of escalation in Ukraine increase with every day of Russia’s deranged invasion, the specter of nuclear war spreads over the planet. Will Russian President Vladimir Putin authorize the use of “tactical” nuclear weapons, most of which are stronger than the nightmare devices dropped on Japan in 1945? The risk of annihilation remains low at any given moment, but the longer we allow states to threaten one another with this kind of eradication, the more likely it is we’ll eventually stumble into a catastrophic nuclear event. Maybe it won’t happen this year, this war, or this century. But in the long-term, in a world with nukes, nuclear war is inevitable.
LANL would get over $1B bump in proposed budget
BY SCOTT WYLAND, THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | April 20, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
SRS WATCH: Nuclear Weapons Funding Request for DOE, Savannah River Site Takes a Huge Leap in Support of Dangerous, Enduring U.S. Plans to Fight a Full-Scale Nuclear War
SRS to Take a Larger Role in Nuclear Weapons Activities as Funding for SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant Spirals Out of Control, Increasing 189% in One Year and Nearing $1 Billion Per Year
Columbia, SC – Details of the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons budget request for Fiscal Year 2023 were released on Friday, April 22, 2022, and a frightening picture emerges of a nation engaged in a nuclear weapons buildup emerges. A key to DOE’s plans to make new nuclear weapons and upgrade old ones is dependent on a host of new production facilities, with the proposed Savannah River Site (SRS) Plutonium Bomb Plant (PBP) playing a key role in expanded reliance on nuclear weapons.
Link to SRS Watch news release, which include links to DOE’s FY23 budget justification, released on April 22, 2022:
https://srswatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/SRS-Watch-news-on-DOE-budget-April-22-2022-1.pdf
Governor Backs Citizens’ Concerns About Diluted Plutonium in Letter
[Michelle Lujan Grisham] sided with residents’ contention — which she has stated in the past — New Mexico shouldn’t be home to the nation’s sole nuclear waste storage site.
“The petitioners would like to see the DOE develop a new disposal site in a state other than New Mexico,” she wrote in the letter.
| April 18, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is asking the Department of Energy to be more open about its plans to dilute and dispose of surplus plutonium and to address concerns by New Mexico residents about the radioactive materials that would be shipped through the state multiple times.
In a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, the governor cited a 1,146-signature petition her office received in which residents expressed uneasiness about the agency’s vague plans to dilute dozens of metric tons of plutonium — which partly would be done at Los Alamos National Laboratory — before disposing of it at an underground site in Carlsbad.
Discovery of radioactive liquid pauses work at US nuke dump
“Independent federal investigators last month raised concerns about whether cost overruns and missed construction deadlines will continue at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant…State regulators are weighing a permit change that some critics have said could lead to expanded repository operations. A decision is expected later this year.”
BY | April 11, 2022 AP NEWS apnews.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — An area at the U.S. government’s nuclear waste repository in southeastern New Mexico was evacuated over the weekend after workers handling a shipping container discovered a small amount of radioactive liquid inside it.
There was no indication of airborne contamination and testing of workers’ hands and feet turned up no contamination after the discovery was made late Saturday in a bay where containers are processed before being taken underground for disposal, officials said in a statement.
“The event at the site has been secured. There is no risk of radiological release and there is no risk to the public or the environment,” plant officials said their most recent statement, issued late Saturday.
Ukrainians shocked by ‘crazy’ scene at Chernobyl after Russian pullout reveals radioactive contamination
“What we see [in Chernobyl] is a vivid example of outrage at a nuclear facility. It is the responsibility not only of Ukraine, but of the whole world, to keep the stations safe. The whole world watched live as tanks fired at nuclear power units [in Zaporizhzhia]. This history must never repeat itself.” – Ukrainian Interior Minister Monastyrskyy
BY | April 9, 2022 cnn.com
Chernobyl, Ukraine (CNN) The sudden ear-piercing beep of a radiation meter fills the room as a Ukrainian soldier walks in. This is where Russian soldiers were living at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and radiation levels are now higher than normal.
“They went to the Red Forest and brought radioactive material back with them on their shoes,” soldier Ihor Ugolkov explains. “Other places are fine, but radiation increased here, because they were living here.”
Workers evacuated from area of Carlsbad nuclear waste repository after ‘abnormal event’
— DOE WIPP (@WIPPNEWS) April 10, 2022
— DOE WIPP (@WIPPNEWS) April 10, 2022
Officials at the facility say there was no risk of radioactive contamination.
BY | April 9, 2022 Carlsbad Current Argus currentargus.com
Carlsbad led to the evacuation of workers Saturday night from an area of the facility where waste is prepared for disposal.
The incident was reported at about 8:20 p.m. in the waste handling building, where shipments of nuclear waste are prepared for disposal in the underground repository.
Officials said there was no risk of a radiological release after the event was investigated.
As a drum of waste was being processed, liquid was found at the bottom of the container which tested positive for radioactive contamination, per a news release from WIPP officials.
All personnel in the area were evacuated and tested for contamination, and operations were temporarily paused.
India’s Inadvertent Missile Launch Underscores the Risk of Accidental Nuclear Warfare
Complex weapon systems are inherently prone to accidents, and this latest launch is one of a long history of military accidents in India
“The mistake that is of greatest concern is a false alarm of an incoming nuclear attack, possibly directed against nuclear forces. Indian or Pakistani—or Russian or NATO—policy makers may find themselves under immense pressure to launch a preemptive attack, thereby compounding the crisis…Nuclear war, even of a limited nature, between India and Pakistan could lead to millions of deaths in the short term and even graver consequences in the longer term for the region and beyond.”
By Zia Mian, M. V. Ramana | April 8, 2022 Scientific American scientificamerican.com
Last month, while most of the world focused on the war in Ukraine and worried that a beleaguered Russian leadership might resort to nuclear weapons, thus escalating the conflict into a direct war with the U.S.-led NATO nuclear-armed alliance, a nearly tragic accident involving India and Pakistan pointed to another path to nuclear war. The accident highlighted how complex technological systems, including those involving nuclear weapons, can generate unexpected routes to potential disaster—especially when managed by overconfident organizations.
Nuclear missiles, bombs market to surge 73% by 2030: Report
“…International treaties and consortiums discourage nuclear testing,” the firm said in a report summary. “This hampers the market growth.”
| April 4, 2022 livemint.com
US President Joe Biden last week requested a record peacetime national defence budget, which would prioritise modernizing its nuclear “triad” of ballistic missile submarines, bombers and land-based missiles.
The report predicted that demand for small nuclear warheads, which can be easily deployed through aircraft and land-based missiles, would fuel faster growth in these segments, although submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) accounted for a quarter of the market in 2020.
While North America dominated more than half the global market in 2020, the report predicted the fastest growth would come from the Asia-Pacific region on initiatives by India, Pakistan and China to bolster their nuclear arsenals.
“However, international treaties and consortiums discourage nuclear testing,” the firm said in a report summary. “This hampers the market growth.”
It predicted that the rising influence of non-nuclear proliferation treaties and national efforts should increase the number of warheads in storage or awaiting dismantlement.
Active weapons, however, accounted for the “lion’s share” – more than two-thirds – of the market in 2020, it said, due to investment in nuclear arsenals and new warhead purchases.
Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States at the start of the year issued a joint statement saying there could be no winners in a nuclear war and it must be avoided.
A Megaton of Waste
The White House’s new defense budget lavishes money on America’s nuclear weapons program in the name of competing with China and Russia. It’s totally unnecessary.
“Biden has scaled back his domestic ambitions even while pushing the defense budget upward and onward.”
| March 30, 2022 slate.com
President Joe Biden’s defense budget for 2023 is gargantuan. It comes to $813.3 billion, nearly $60 billion higher than the budget he requested a year ago for 2022. Just a few weeks ago, Congress passed a bill adding $25 billion to that earlier budget. Biden’s new budget, which he submitted on Monday, accepts the congressional hike as a baseline and raises the pot by another $32 billion.
To put this in perspective, Biden’s $813 billion exceeds President Donald Trump’s final defense budget by $75 billion—which, for a sense of proportion, is about 2.5 times what the government spends on Pell grants for low-income college students. It tops the amount that the Trump administration figured it would spend in 2023 by $40 billion.
Nuclear Radiation is Becoming a Campaign Issue
Why it’s time to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
“Without congressional action, RECA will expire in July 2022. Because of the arbitrarily drawn lines of eligibility written into the original 1990 bill, many Downwinders and other impacted individuals, like many uranium workers, are not eligible for compensation — both in Utah, and in states across the West and territories in the Pacific.”
| March 29, 2022 inkstickmedia.com
In recent weeks, the world has held its collective breath as Russia shelled, and then occupied, Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst-ever nuclear reactor disaster, and Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Not to mention Putin’s thinly veiled threats of nuclear war to those who support Ukraine. With these developments, the world consciousness has been reinvigorated with concern about nuclear radiation. But, the concern over radiation never waned for those in the American West, who continue to live with the disastrous health consequences from Cold War-era nuclear testing and production.
Santa Fe New Mexican Letters to the Editor:
THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | April 2, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
With Russia at war in Ukraine, US ramps up nuclear-weapons mission at Los Alamos. Is it a ‘real necessity’?
“The core debate: A multi-billion-dollar project to make plutonium cores at Los Alamos National Laboratory may be unsafe, unnecessary and ill-conceived. But proponents say the mission is a must.”
BY Annabella Farmer| March 24, 2022 Searchlight NM searchlightnm.org
LOS ALAMOS — Los Alamos began as an “instant city,” springing from the Pajarito Plateau in 1943 at the dawn of the Atomic Age. More than 8,000 people flocked here to work for Los Alamos National Laboratory and related industries during the last years of World War II. Now the city may be on the brink of another boom as the federal government moves forward with what could be the most expensive warhead modernization program in U.S. history. Under the proposed plan, LANL will become home to an industrial-scale plant for manufacturing the radioactive cores of nuclear weapons — hollow spheres of plutonium that act as triggers for nuclear explosions. The ripple effects are already being felt.
Roads are planned to be widened to accommodate 2,500 extra workers. New housing developments are appearing, one of them about a mile from large white tents that house drums of radioactive waste. And these are just the signs visible to the public: Within the lab, workers are busy around the clock to get facilities ready to produce the first plutonium core next year.
The cores — known as pits — haven’t been mass-produced since the end of the Cold War. But in 2018, under pressure from the Trump administration, the federal government called for at least 80 new pits to be manufactured each year, conservatively expected to cost $9 billion — the lion’s share of a $14.8 billion weapons program upgrade. After much infighting over the massive contract, plans call for Los Alamos to manufacture 30 pits annually and for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to make the remaining 50.
The idea of implementing an immense nuclear program at Los Alamos has sparked outrage among citizens, nuclear watchdogs, scientists and arms control experts, who say the pit-production mission is neither safe nor necessary.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Jay Coghlan on the Richard Eeds Show – March 29, 2022
Jay Coghlan, Executive Director @ Nuclear Watch New Mexico, on tactical nukes in the Ukraine war with Russia, the deterrent factor, PIT manufacturing in Los Alamos and other related topics.
Feds agree to LANL waste cleanup and repairs to settle lawsuit
Federal officials would agree only to study the possibility of clearing out waste from the Area G pit and wouldn’t commit to following through, said Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch’s executive director.
“Ideally, the transuranic nuclear waste would go to WIPP, and the low-level radioactive materials would be buried in a landfill with liners and a leachate collection system. Capping and covering the on-site pit is problematic because it’s unlined and could allow toxins to leach into the groundwater,”
| March 23, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
Los Alamos National Laboratory will do extensive waste cleanup and fix a long-broken monitoring system for polluted runoff to comply with a settlement of a watchdog’s lawsuit.
The U.S. Department of Energy and Nuclear Watch New Mexico agreed to a settlement in federal court last week to end six years of litigation for what the watchdog group characterized as neglect of longtime issues.
“It’s now a legal obligation on the part of DOE,” said Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch’s executive director. “I do expect DOE will be cooperative in this.”
Say NO to nuclear war!
Stop President Biden’s atrocious request: an $813 billion Pentagon budget!
President Biden has requested an additional $31 billion to increase the Pentagon budget from this year’s already excessive level of $782 billion. But this money should be spent on YOUR needs!
The Ukraine war has been used as an excuse for this outrageous Pentagon budget — which is 12 times more than Russia’s military spending. The Pentagon, which spends more than the next 11 countries combined, can easily afford to arm Ukraine and send more troops to Europe (though we oppose these steps) without additional funding.
The rapid increases in the Pentagon budget are making us less safe, even as war rages in Ukraine. They will only raise tensions with Russia and China, prepare for a superpower conflict, and put innocent people at risk.
Nuclear fears in US amid Russia-Ukraine war, says a new poll
Close to half of Americans say they are very concerned that Russia would directly target the U.S. with nuclear weapons, and an additional 3 in 10 are somewhat concerned about that, according to the new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Russian President Vladimir Putin placed his country’s nuclear forces on high alert shortly after the Feb. 24 invasion.
BY BEN FOX and HANNAH FINGERHUT | March 28, 2022 APNEWS apnews.com
Russia’s war on Ukraine has most Americans at least somewhat worried that the U.S. will be drawn directly into the conflict. Now a new poll says there is also anxiety among Americans that they could be targeted with nuclear weapons.
Close to half of Americans in the poll say they are very concerned that Russia would directly target the U.S. with nuclear weapons, and an additional 3 in 10 are somewhat concerned about that.
Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety: “Nuclear Watch New Mexico Settlement Moves Cleanup at LANL Forward”
This week Nuclear Watch New Mexico announced the successful settlement of its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) about its slow cleanup of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). After a six-year court battle, the settlement requires DOE to re-establish a monitoring station on the Rio Grande in order to protect the Buckman Direct Diversion Project, which provides about 40 percent of the drinking water for Santa Fe residents. The monitoring station was destroyed in 2013 during a major flood event. https://bddproject.org/
The settlement also includes the cleanup of 158 corrugated metal culverts containing cemented radioactive liquid waste buried at the Area G dump; a feasibility study for the excavation of a waste pit, also at Area G; and the investigation, characterization and, if necessary, clean up of 290 specific dumps scattered across the LANL site.
To read the press release with a link to the Settlement Agreement:
NukeWatch Lawsuit Settlement Speeds Up Cleanup at Los Alamos Lab
What to know about the threat of nuclear war
“Special alert is the Russian military’s highest level of alert. So Putin’s statement is serious. But it should also be noted that Russia, France, the United Kingdom and of course, the United States maintain almost 2,000 nuclear warheads on various states of high alert.”
By Paige Sutherland & Meghna Chakrabarti| March 14, 2022 wbur.org
On January 3rd of this year, the world’s five largest nuclear powers, including Russia, issued the following joint statement:
“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
But, one month later, Russian troops invaded Ukraine.
It’s a move that alarmed the world, and seems to fly in the face of that statement, which also says:
“Nuclear weapons — for as long as they continue to exist — should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war.”
On Point: Russia, and the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal. Where are the weapons, how are they controlled and what could trigger a launch?
FULL/ORIGINAL ARTICLE
THE INTERCEPT: “CONGRESS IS ALREADY BLOWING A KEY CHANCE TO REFORM NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLICY”
The national security establishment and its corporate allies dominate Congress’s new nuclear weapons commission.
“While the world draws closer to nuclear war than it has in decades, perhaps ever, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has given lawmakers a unique opportunity to scrutinize the massive nuclear modernization effort currently underway in the U.S. — the largest since the Cold War. But last week, when Congress announced most of its appointees to a new commission designed to do just that, it was business as usual. A former senator-turned-defense contractor lobbyist and a senior executive for BP were among the picks.”
By Sara Sirota | March 24, 2022 THE INTERCEPT theintercept.com
SPEAKING TO CNN on Tuesday, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin, reiterated a well-known tenet of Russian military doctrine: The country could resort to the use of nuclear weapons if it perceives an “existential threat.” Russian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy made a similar comment to Sky News, saying that nuclear war could be a possible outcome if the country is “provoked” or “attacked” by NATO. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby called Peskov’s comments to CNN “dangerous,” saying: “It’s not the way a responsible nuclear power should act” — begging the question of whether there is such a thing as a “responsible” nuclear power.
Federal court approves NukeWatch settlement with DOE over 2016 consent order
“The U.S. District Court for New Mexico has approved the proposed settlement filed earlier this month
EXCHANGE MONITOR | March 24, 2022 exchangemonitor.org
between the Department of Energy and Nuclear Watch New Mexico, or NukeWatch, over a 2016 federal-state consent decree covering legacy cleanup at the Los Alamos…”
Biden Nominee to Lead Civilian Nuclear Weapons Office Gets His Hearing; Supports Review of Warhead Trigger Program
Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Tri-Valley CAREs and Savannah River Site Watch are in the process of suing for a programmatic environmental impact statement to be completed on plutonium “pit” (warhead trigger) production.
By Dan Leone | | March 22, 2022 DEFENSE DAILY defensedaily.com
In a confirmation hearing Tuesday morning, the Biden administration’s nominee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) weapons programs from headquarters in Washington pledged his support for the agency’s program of record and agreed to review the agency’s plan to produce new plutonium pits if confirmed.
The nominee, Marvin Adams, a professor of nuclear engineering at Texas A&M University, testified alongside three other witnesses before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Adams appeared before the committee about 10 weeks after the Biden administration sent his nomination to the Senate. The White House announced its intent to nominate Adams in mid-December.
Watchdog wins LANL lawsuit, compelling cleanup, fixes
“The federal ruling in favor of Nuclear Watch New Mexico brings to a close six years of litigation against the U.S. Department of Energy for what the group has characterized as the agency’s neglect of longtime issues.”
BY SCOTT WYLAND, THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | March 23, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
Mar. 23—Los Alamos National Laboratory must do extensive waste cleanup and site remediation and fix a long-broken monitoring system for polluted runoff to comply with a federal court’s ruling on a watchdog’s lawsuit.
The Smaller Bombs That Could Turn Ukraine Into a Nuclear War Zone
“Mr. Putin might fire a [nuclear] weapon at an uninhabited area instead of at troops…It feels horrible to talk about these things, but we have to consider that this is becoming a possibility.” — Ulrich Kühn, a nuclear expert at the University of Hamburg and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Putin is using nuclear deterrence to have his way in Ukraine. His nuclear weapons keep the West from intervening.” — Nina Tannenwald, a political scientist at Brown University who recently profiled the less powerful armaments (so-called tactical nuclear weapons that can be launched on mobile short-range ballistic missile systems).
© NEW YORK TIMES By William J. Broad | March 21, 2022 nytimes.com
In destructive power, the behemoths of the Cold War dwarfed the American atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Washington’s biggest test blast was 1,000 times as large. Moscow’s was 3,000 times. On both sides, the idea was to deter strikes with threats of vast retaliation — with mutual assured destruction, or MAD. The psychological bar was so high that nuclear strikes came to be seen as unthinkable.
“Nuclear Weapons Must Be Eliminated, Not Reinforced”
STATEMENT BY MOST REVEREND JOHN C. WESTER ON WAR IN UKRAINE: “Nuclear Weapons Must Be Eliminated, Not Reinforced”
ALBUQUERQUE – Saturday, March 19, 2022 – IMMEDIATE RELEASE — Most Reverend John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe has made the following statement on the War in Ukraine:
We watch in horror as a brutal land war erupts, threatening all of Europe, which seems inconceivable after the end of the Cold War some thirty years ago. We pray for the safety and well-being of both Ukrainians and Russians and hope that God’s light and our own sanctified work towards justice and redemption can lead us to a lasting peace. In particular, we pray for the multitude of refugees and children who are having their lives destroyed by needless and unjustified violence. No matter what language they speak or which ruler they pledge allegiance to, may the Lord protect all of our brothers and sisters through the grace of God! This has been our intention during the novena for Ukraine that we are currently praying in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
Considering that letter and given the renewed fear of nuclear war that the Ukraine invasion has prompted, I feel compelled to address the important issue of nuclear disarmament.
Living on the Edge 3.12.2022 – Environmental Clean Up at LANL
Joel and Xubi discuss the Ukrainian invasion in the context of nuclear weapons and strategic resource acquisition with Jay Coghan from NukeWatch.
Watchdog has concerns with projects at U.S. nuclear repository
“Nuclear watchdog groups have been critical of the Energy Department. They have raised concerns about the repository’s future, citing the increase in defense-related waste that will need to be disposed of when production of key components for the country’s nuclear arsenal ramps up at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.”
| March 15, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
ALBUQUERQUE — There’s no way of knowing if cost increases and missed construction deadlines will continue at the only United States underground nuclear waste repository, according to a federal watchdog report made public Tuesday.
The Government Accountability Office outlined the concerns in its report, noting the U.S. Energy Department is not required to develop a corrective action plan for addressing the root causes of challenges at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Southern New Mexico.
A multimillion-dollar project is underway at the underground facility to install a new ventilation system so full operations can resume after a radiation leak in 2014 forced the repository’s closure for nearly three years.
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant: Construction Challenges Highlight the Need for DOE to Address Root Causes
The new ventilation system at WIPP now estimated to take 4 more years and $200 million more dollars than original estimates.
NEW Report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office March 15, 2022 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105057
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), near Carlsbad, New Mexico, is the nation’s only facility for disposal of certain defense-related nuclear waste. The Department of Energy (DOE) identified two root causes for cost increases and schedule delays in its project to install a new ventilation system at WIPP (see figure). The facility is currently operating at a reduced capacity because of ventilation issues in the underground waste disposal areas. The root causes DOE identified were (1) its contractor’s inexperience managing construction projects and (2) an inability to incentivize staff to work in Carlsbad. DOE also identified more specific problems with this ventilation project, and has taken corrective actions to address them. While some of these corrective actions may also help to address the root causes, the extent to which these actions will do so is unclear because DOE is not required to develop a corrective action plan for addressing the root causes and does not have a process to determine whether root causes have been sufficiently addressed. Without such a plan and process, DOE cannot ensure that root causes it identifies for cost increases and schedule delays in the WIPP ventilation project or other projects will not persist or recur.
I’m Worried About Ukraine, but it’s Not What You Think
“In the end, it is situations like the war in Ukraine that demonstrate exactly why we need to find ways to reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.” – Dr. Tara Drozdenko of the Union of Concerned Scientists
By Tara Drozdenko, Director, Global Security Program | March 15, 2022 allthingsnuclear.org
As someone who works on nuclear weapons policy for a living, I’ve been getting questions from family and friends about the war in Ukraine and the risk of nuclear use. My colleagues are getting similar questions. Most of these questions boil down to, “Should we be worried?” or “How worried should I be?”
I think concern is a healthy response to this conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued veiled threats of nuclear use and neighboring Belarus has paved the way to host nuclear weapons on its territory. Things are tense. And if NATO countries were somehow pulled into the conflict—even by accident—there is some chance this war could turn nuclear. So far, the US and other NATO countries have been very careful that there not be any misunderstandings, including cancelling a planned test launch of a Minute Man III missile.
Why New Technology Is Making Nuclear Arms Control Harder
“The US, China, and Russia are locked in a high-tech race to perfect new nuclear capabilities, rendering some Cold War safeguards obsolete.”
BY PATRICK TUCKER | Defense One March 14, 2022 defenseone.com
The risks associated with nuclear weapons are rising once again, the heads of three U.S. intelligence agencies told lawmakers last week, as Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine intensified.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
At the end of the Cold War, President George H.W. Bush boasted that the United States could now reduce its nuclear forces. But today’s arsenals—and global politics—are much different than in 1991. U.S. leaders face threatening dictatorships in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang, all racing to create new nuclear bombs and ways to deliver them. Technology, it turns out, is making arms control harder, and that’s forcing a big rethink about nuclear deterrence.
Fukushima: 11 Years Later
There is no guarantee that nuclear reactors will ever be designed, built and operated 100% correctly, forever. Mistakes do occur and the designers of reactors at Fukushima in Japan did not anticipate that on March 11, 2011 a tsunami generated by an earthquake would disable the backup systems that were supposed to stabilize the reactor after the earthquake. According to UBS AG, the Fukushima I nuclear accidents have cast doubt on whether even an advanced economy like Japan can master nuclear safety.
The current fighting in Ukraine does not help quell any fears of the massive risks of nuclear power, and in fact comparisons have been made between the situation there and Fukushima 11 years ago: “While I don’t think the plant would blow up, it would be close-in contamination to the local area like Fukushima was,” — Murray Jenne, professor of crisis response at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas and a former U.S. Navy nuclear power propulsion officer. USA TODAY
11 years on, Fukushima morass still poses danger
By KARL WILSON | March 12, 2022 CHINA DAILY
On March 11, 2011, the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan became the world’s second-worst nuclear disaster after the plant was hit by a tsunami following a strong earthquake.
The International Atomic Energy Agency classified it as a Level 7 nuclear accident, which means it had widespread health and environmental impacts. The world’s only other Level 7 accident was at Chernobyl in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, on April 26, 1986.
11 years later, fate of Fukushima reactor cleanup uncertain
“It’s like we have finally come to the starting line. Before, we didn’t even know which way we were supposed to go.” – TEPCO Chief Decommissioning Officer Akira Ono
By MARI YAMAGUCHI | March 10, 2022 apnews.com
OKUMA, Japan (AP) — Eleven years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was ravaged by a meltdown following a massive earthquake and tsunami, the plant now looks like a sprawling construction site. Most of the radioactive debris blasted by the hydrogen explosions has been cleared and the torn buildings have been fixed.
During a recent visit by journalists from The Associated Press to see firsthand the cleanup of one of the world’s worst nuclear meltdowns, helmeted men wore regular work clothes and surgical masks, instead of previously required hazmat coveralls and full-face masks, as they dug near a recently reinforced oceanside seawall.
Workers were preparing for the planned construction of an Olympic pool-sized shaft for use in a highly controversial plan set to begin in the spring of 2023 to gradually get rid of treated radioactive water — now exceeding 1.3 million tons stored in 1,000 tanks — so officials can make room for other facilities needed for the plant’s decommissioning.
‘Limited’ Tactical Nuclear Weapons Would Be Catastrophic
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows the limits of nuclear deterrence
“Nuclear deterrence comes with tremendous risks and enormous costs. The arguments in favor of deterrence, although sometimes convincing, are not always true. We must acknowledge that nuclear deterrence could fail. That’s why, despite the trillions of dollars spent on nuclear arsenals, no one sleeps soundly under a nuclear umbrella—especially during a crisis such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
By Nina Tannenwald | March 10, 2022 scientificamerican.com
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin has given orders to increase the alert level of Russia’s nuclear forces and has made veiled nuclear threats. The blatant aggression against Ukraine has shocked Europe and the world. The war is a tragedy for Ukraine. It also exposes the limits of the West’s reliance on nuclear deterrence.
View Recording of Recent PDA CNM Community Gathering: Abolishing Nuclear Weapons is a Moral Imperative
PDA CNM welcomed Archbishop John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe, and our own executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Jay Coghlan, to speak at their March 9, 2022 monthly gathering: “[Archbishop Wester’s] courage in speaking out against the proliferation of nuclear weapons inspires us at PDACNM to follow his example and continue the fight against this peril, especially given the threat of a possible imminent war between two nuclear powers.
Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, has worked successfully against radioactive incineration at the Los Alamos National Lab, and in Clean Air Act, Freedom of Information Act and National Environmental Policy Act lawsuits against the Department of Energy. He prompted a 2006 independent study that concluded plutonium pits last at least a century, refuting the NNSA’s assertion that we “need” new-design nuclear weapons and expanded plutonium pit production.”
Thank You to Everyone Who Attended the Progressive Democrats of America Central NM Chapter Monthly Community Gathering! Please stay tuned for a recording of the event.
Speakers:
Archbishop John C.Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe
Jay Coghlan, NukeWatch NM
PDACNM welcomed Archbishop John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe to their monthly gathering. His courage in speaking out against the proliferation of nuclear weapons inspired PDACNM to follow his example and continue the fight against this peril, especially given the threat of a possible imminent war between two nuclear powers.
Why We Are in a New Nuclear Arms Race and What You Can Do to Stop It
Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, has worked successfully against radioactive incineration at the Los Alamos National Lab, and in Clean Air Act, Freedom of Information Act and National Environmental Policy Act lawsuits against the Department of Energy. He prompted a 2006 independent study that concluded plutonium pits last at least a century, refuting the NNSA’s assertion that we “need” new-design nuclear weapons and expanded plutonium pit production.
Jay described how the new nuclear arms race is more dangerous than the first one. How it might lead to a nuclear hot war over Ukraine. And how devastating a nuclear war would be for everyone, including us.
Two more radioactive releases reported at LANL
A lab critic said he’s concerned about flaws in worker training, equipment and inspections contributing to glove box breaches as LANL gears up for producing plutonium pits for warhead triggers.
“As things ramp up, we’re bound to have more problems,” said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico.
| March 8, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
Los Alamos National Laboratory had two additional breaches of a sealed radioactive-material compartment known as a glove box in January, bringing the total to three in one month, according to a government watchdog.
One employee damaged a glove attached to a sealed compartment while manually moving material with a disabled trolley through the enclosed space, causing enough of a release to contaminate the person’s face.
Confirmation that SRS Plutonium was taken to DOE’s Pantex Site in Texas
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), which conducts oversight of DOE projects, has confirmed that plutonium from SRS was taken to the Pantex site in Texas, for storage. Sounds like it’s being stored in bunkers where plutonium pits (from nuclear weapons) are stored.TOM CLEMENTS SRS Watch | March 8, 2022 srswatch.org
It is unclear what the fate of this plutonium will be, which was removed from SRS due to legal requirements to do so. the amount that went to Pantex is likely 500 kilograms (0.5 metric tons). 3 kg is enough for a pit in a nuclear weapon.
Will the Pu be shipped for a nuclear weapons use or will it be processed into oxide (if DOE moves the ARIES plutonium oxide conversion process from Los Alamos National Lab to Pantex)? SRS Watch has a Freedom of Information Act request in to DOE concerning the legally required analysis of moving ARIES to Pantex. As usual, as the secretary of energy isn’t doing her job or paying attention to the public, that request languishes.
Nuclear News Archives – 2021
Regional Coalition Of LANL Communities Board Unanimously Passes Resolution To Dissolve
THANK YOU to everyone who contacted city officials opposing the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities!
BY MAIRE O’NEILL [email protected]| losalamosreporter.com
Members of the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities board voted Friday afternoon to approve a resolution authorizing the direction of the winding down of the RCLC at the point of its termination. The resolution also directs legal counsel Nancy Long, treasurer Los Alamos County Councilor David Izraelevitz and Los Alamos County as the fiscal agent to take all actions necessary and warranted to see that the termination and all matters that need to be attended to upon that termination, are taken care of in an orderly way and ratifies actions that have been taken to this point to accomplish that.
Long said the resolution is the beginning of the process and that the resolution expresses the will of the board that the RCLC be wound down and terminated officially with the actions that are necessary to accomplish that.
“We foresee that there will be matters relating to payment of invoices and completing the audit for the fiscal year and we’re hoping to accomplish all those in short order if the board decides this is the direction it wants to take with the organization,” she said.
Ironically, the motion to proceed with the resolution for the disbandment and dissolution of the Coalition was made by Rio Arriba County Commissioner Christine Bustos who later said it was her first and last meeting. Santa Fe City Councilor Michael Garcia seconded the motion. Garcia had abstained during voting with his own government in decisions regarding the Coalition.
Only five member entities were represented at the meeting and all five voted in favor of the resolution. Absent were Santa Fe County, Taos County, Jemez Pueblo and Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo.
Garcia thanked the community members for their constant engagement in the RCLC process.
“I think its critical that in the RCLC or any other entity community engagement is critical and I believe that as we move forward through this process we still need to continue to keep our community members engaged and make sure we are working towards our best interests,” he said.
Espanola Mayor Javier Sanchez said he learned a lot in terms of what Espanola needs to do in terms of advocacy and what need to be done to champion issues improve the lives of constituents.
NM Archbishop Can’t Stay Silent on LANL’s Arms Work
“I believe strongly that Pope Francis is right. For peace to flourish, we have to lay down weapons,” [Archbishop of Santa Fe John Wester] said, referring to Pope Francis’ statement that even the possession of atomic weapons of war was immoral.
“And any continuing development of nuclear weapons, and refining them, is going in the wrong direction.”
BY: T.S. Last / Journal North
Published: Wednesday, May 26th, 2021
Copyright © 2021 Albuquerque Journal
SANTA FE – Archbishop of Santa Fe John Wester praises much of the work being done at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The lab’s expertise greatly contributes to developments in bioscience, computer science, engineering, medicine and modeling that helped the nation navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic.
But it also builds bombs – the kind capable of killing massive numbers of people. And that’s not an easy thing for him – and some Catholics working for the lab – to reconcile.
Wester says that as the archdiocese within which the lab operates, the Santa Fe Archdiocese has a “moral responsibility” to facilitate discussion about the lab’s national security mission, most of which is dedicated to weapons production.
“I believe strongly that Pope Francis is right. For peace to flourish, we have to lay down weapons,” he said, referring to Pope Francis’ statement that even the possession of atomic weapons of war was immoral. “And any continuing development of nuclear weapons, and refining them, is going in the wrong direction.”
Wester’s remarks come just as Los Alamos National Laboratory is expanding its national security mission through production of plutonium pits, the cores of nuclear warheads that detonate the bombs. As a direct result of the project, the lab has begun expanding into Santa Fe, the city named for St. Francis of Assisi.
The pope’s 2019 statement was the harshest condemnation of weapons of mass destruction to date from the church. He could have been speaking about LANL and its new mission to manufacture plutonium pits when he said, “In a world where millions of children and families live in inhumane conditions, the money that is squandered, and the fortunes made in the manufacture, upgrading, maintenance and sale of ever more destructive weapons, are an affront crying out to heaven.”
Meet the Senate nuke caucus, busting the budget and making the world less safe
These lawmakers represent states with a direct interest in pouring billions into modernizing and building new weapons.
By: Marcy Winograd and Medea Benjamin | responsiblestatecraft.org
Democrats might control the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government right now, but a small Republican-dominated Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Coalition exercises outsized influence in a frightening campaign for nuclear rearmament.
The coalition, comprising six senators from states that house, develop, or test underground land-based nuclear weapons, is pushing a wasteful and dangerous $1.7 trillion, decades-long plan to produce new nuclear weapons, some with warheads 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
While the 1980s witnessed the nuclear freeze and a mass movement to demand nuclear disarmament between the U.S. and Soviet Union, the 1990s gave birth to the missile caucus, the Congressional engine careening the U.S. into a renewed nuclear arms race.
Santa Fe to exit Regional Coalition of LANL Communities
THANK YOU to everyone who contacted city officials in support of overturning the RCLC for good!
By: Sean P. Thomas [email protected] | Santa Fe New Mexican
The Santa Fe City Council unanimously approved a resolution Wednesday to pull the city from the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities, a consortium of local and tribal governments with economic ties to Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Santa Fe’s resolution requests that the coalition return dues paid by the city and instructs city officials to begin exploring other ways to lobby the laboratory for economic opportunities and environmental cleanup.
The coalition’s board voted Friday to begin winding down the entity and close out debts, before paying back members their 2021 dues.
“I think it’s important to state while this process is going on that we approved this resolution withdrawing the city of Santa Fe from the RCLC,” said Councilor Renee Villarreal.
The coalition was formed in 2011 to advocate for sitewide cleanup and economic opportunities at the laboratory, but critics have said the coalition no longer achieves its original purpose.
Surprise! Upgrading America’s Nuclear Arsenal Will Be Stupefyingly Expensive
The cost jumped $140 billion in just 2 years. Here’s why.
BY: | popularmechanics.com
- The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now says the cost of updating the U.S.’s nuclear weapons is $140 billion more than it estimated just 2 years ago.
- The increase is largely due to inflation and the inclusion of new, expensive projects the CBO didn’t cover 2 years ago.
- The new estimate comes as a proposal in Congress seeks to trim the nuclear budget.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) estimate of nuclear weapon expenditures over the next decade has jumped a staggering $140 billion in just 2 years.
The estimate, which the agency provided to Congress to give an idea of how much it will take to build new missiles, ships, and planes, as well as revamp America’s vast nuclear infrastructure, comes as key members of the legislature are pushing to cut nuclear weapons spending over the next 10 years.
Estimated Cost of US Nuclear Modernization Jumps 28 Percent
The Congressional Budget Office’s latest estimate puts the price tag at $634 billion as some lawmakers try to bring it back down.
BY PATRICK TUCKER | defenseone.com May 24, 2021
The estimated cost of replacing America’s nuclear bombers, missile submarines, and ICBMs just jumped again—from $315 billion in 2015 to $494 billion in 2019 and now to $634 billion, a 28 percent increase, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released Monday.
The report identifies a $140 billion increase in the cost of nuclear delivery systems and weapons, such as ICBMs, as the largest contributor to the jump. “Projected costs for command, control, communications, and early-warning systems have also increased substantially,” it says, adding that if full costs of B-52 and B-21 bombers were included, “the total costs of nuclear forces, with cost growth, would be $711 billion.”
It’s the second time CBO has raised their projections for the costs of modernizing U.S. nuclear forces.
Some lawmakers have balked at what they perceive as the steep price tag for modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., has called for a debate specifically on the high cost of replacing the intercontinental leg of the triad. On Monday, he unveiled a new bill, dubbed the SANE act, to cut $73 billion from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget.
Department of Energy seeks to modify N.M. plant’s nuclear waste permit
Dragging out WIPP’s operations decades past the original 20-year agreement violates the social contract made with New Mexicans, said Scott Kovac, research and operations director for the nonprofit Nuclear Watch New Mexico.
WIPP is being equipped to take the waste that will be generated from production of plutonium pits for nuclear warheads, Kovac said.
“It [WIPP] was never really suppose to do that,” Kovac said.
Scott Wyland [email protected] | Santa Fe New Mexican May 17, 2021
Federal officials say a new air shaft is needed at the nuclear waste disposal site in Southern New Mexico to keep workers safe and run more efficiently.
Watch this video from the Stop Forever WIPP coalition: “When is a shaft more than a shaft?” dispelling the idea that an expansion of WIPP will mostly impact the South Eastern part of New Mexico; The new waste targeted for WIPP would be re-processed at Los Alamos. It also dispels the idea that targeting NM for waste disposal has nothing to do with our minority majority population.
The U.S. Government Hides Some Of Its Darkest Secrets At The Department Of Energy
The Department of Energy controls many ‘black projects’ that live outside of the limelight that is intrinsic to the DoD and the intel community.
BY BRETT TINGLEY | thedrive.com May 13, 2021
When it comes to discussions of government secrecy, much of the conversation tends to revolve around the Department of Defense (DOD) or the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). After all, the U.S. military develops many of the United States’ most sensitive weapon systems used to defend America and project its power globally, and the IC gathers and analyzes sensitive information on foreign threats and external national security matters. Each year, the budget requests from the U.S. military are packed with classified and Special Access Programs, or SAPs, sporting vague code names, many of which never see the light of day. When we talk of the “black world,” most often that conversation centers around these programs and technologies suspected to be housed deep within the classified ends of the Pentagon and its various service branches.
Often left out of this conversation is the fact that there is a wholly separate cabinet-level department of the U.S. government that is arguably even more opaque in terms of secrecy and oversight than the Department of Defense. Over the last few years, allegations of secret, exotic technologies have reinvigorated claims that the DOD may be concealing scientific breakthroughs from the American public. However, if the U.S. government, or some faction within it, hypothetically came across a groundbreaking development in energy production or applied physics, a very strong case could be made that such a revolution would likely be housed deep within the Department of Energy (DOE) rather than DOD.
County Commission votes to exit Regional Coalition of LANL Communities
The exodus from the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities continued Tuesday.
“Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, agreed, adding he believed the coalition effectively stood in the way of site cleanup by supporting a 2016 consent order.”
By Sean P. Thomas [email protected] | Santa Fe New Mexican
The Santa Fe County Commission voted unanimously to ditch the coalition after some commissioners voiced concerns that the body was no longer the proper vehicle to advocate for site cleanup and mission diversification at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
“The mission of the RCLC and the attempt of the collaboration is admirable,” said commission Chairman Henry Roybal, who stepped down as chairman of the Regional Coalition of Los Alamos National Laboratory Communities this year. “However with the progress, it does not seem like this vehicle is the best avenue to express this collaborative voice. There are so many things that just aren’t where they need to be.”
The coalition was formed in 2011 and consists of local and tribal governments. It was created to provide local governments an opportunity to advocate for jobs, environmental cleanup and other priorities at the laboratory.
Each member organization pays annual dues to be a member, with Santa Fe County at $10,000.
LANL’s move to Santa Fe means jobs, and controversy
By: Editorials / ABQJournal
Santa Fe’s relationship with Los Alamos National Laboratory has been rocky for years. The City Council, with some regularity, has passed resolutions of concern about the nuclear weapons lab’s environmental impact and radioactive materials safety lapses, the production of weapons parts in Los Alamos and the proliferation of nuclear weapons in general.
ILHAN OMAR SIGNS ICAN PLEDGE
April 30, 2021: Representative Ilhan Omar today submitted her signed ICAN Pledge to ICAN, becoming the eleventh member of the US Congress to sign the Pledge. Rep. Omar represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives. Rep Omar also co-sponsor the H.R.2850 Nuclear Abolition and Economic Conversion Act of 2021 that Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton reintroduced on April 26, 2021.
Regional Coalition Of LANL Communities Struggles To Survive
Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico complained that the RCLC main selling point was to lobby for mission diversification and accelerated cleanup and said he would argue that the Coalition has been a spectacular failure on both counts.
“When the Coalition was founded in 2011, LANL’s nuclear weapons budget was $1.9 billion. A decade later that budget is $2.9 billion and the total spending on core nuclear weapons research and production has risen year after year to where now it’s a full 70 percent of all funding and all of the remaining 30 percent either directly or indirectly supports those nuclear weapons,” Coghlan said.
By: MAIRE O’NEILL [email protected] | losalamosreporter.com May 3, 2021
The next couple of months may determine the demise of the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities. The City of Santa Fe opted last month not to approve the RCLC’s amended and restated joint powers agreement which has been hanging out there waiting for the City’s decision since March 2019. The City is slated to decide whether to withdraw completely from the RCLC later this month.
The Taos County Commission is slated to decide Tuesday whether it wishes to continue as a member and Santa Fe County Commissioners have the same decision to make at their May 11 meeting.
Los Alamos County Council is expected to discuss its RCLC status in June which will be the first time the Council will have had an agenda item on the RCLC since it approved the amended JPA in July of 2020. The discussion is at the request of Council Vice Chair James Robinson. Councilor David Izraelevitz, who serves as RCLC treasurer, has been a strong advocate of the RCLC and has recently addressed several meetings of members of the Santa Fe City Council at the behest of Councilor Michael Garcia to encourage them to approve the amended JPA. City of Espanola Mayor Javier Sanchez also attended a Santa Fe City Council meeting to advocate and answer questions.
NNSA approves Critical Decision 1 for Los Alamos Plutonium Pit Production Project
“Recommended approach to producing 30 plutonium pits per year identified”
CD-1 approval marks the completion of the project definition phase and the conceptual design as part of DOE’s Order 413.3B process for the acquisition of capital assets. NNSA identified its recommended approach to produce at least 30 plutonium pits per year to meet national security needs.
The CD-1 cost estimate for LAP4 is $2.7-$3.9 billion, with an overall project completion range of 2027-2028. Critical equipment is scheduled to be installed in time to achieve the 30 pits per year production capacity in 2026. The CD-1 cost estimate and project completion date ranges are preliminary estimates that will be refined as the project conceptual design is matured to the 90% design level required to achieve CD-2 (approval of the performance baseline). Consistent with industry best practices and DOE policy, NNSA will set the performance cost and schedule baseline at CD-2, which is expected in 2023.
NNSA leadership and LANL will continue to review this project to improve the fidelity of the current price estimate and schedule.
###
Los Alamos lab sees two mishaps in a week
The water spill should be a reminder that the plutonium facility’s work is done by people, and people make mistakes, said Scott Kovac, research and operations director for the nonprofit Nuclear Watch New Mexico.
“Pit production will place a real time-pressure crunch on the workers and lead to more accidents,” Kovac said.
“It should lead us to consider the consequences if someone left a plutonium furnace on or something that could endanger the public…these kinds of missteps are likely to increase as the lab ramps up production of plutonium pits used to trigger nuclear warheads. Current plans call for the lab to make 30 of the nuclear bomb cores a year by 2026,”
| santafenewmexican.com April 26, 2021
Los Alamos National Laboratory had two mishaps in one week: a glove box breach that contaminated workers’ protective equipment and a spill of 1,800 gallons of water into a vault corridor after an employee left a valve open.
The incidents were the latest in a series of accidents in recent months at the lab, as reported by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
In the board’s most recent report, an alarm sounded March 29 when a worker tore a protective glove attached to a sealed compartment known as a glove box while handling a piece of plutonium.
Continue reading
Sleepwalking into Nuclear War?
“People like to think that every nuclear-armed country has only one “button”, with which a president could consciously choose to start a nuclear war, after careful deliberation. But in fact there are thousands of people in the world controlling different parts of different arsenals who could independently initiate a nuclear war.” – Caitlin Johnstone
JONATHAN POWER | indepthnews.net
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Last week on Tuesday (April 20), US Strategic Command, the part of the military responsible for nuclear weaponry and its use, posted an official Tweet that read, “We must account for the possibility of conflict leading to conditions which could very rapidly drive an adversary to consider nuclear use as their least bad option”.
This came just as Russia was pulling back its large deployment of troops on Ukraine’s border which, in turn, was triggered in part by President Joseph Biden’s decision to ship for the first time sophisticated weapons to Ukraine.
The crisis has now passed but the lesson lingers. Arguably we are closer to war with Russia than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 (which I wrote about last week, April 20).
CHERNOBYL: 35 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE WORLD’S WORST NUCLEAR ACCIDENT
ON THIS DAY in 1986, workers ran a safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine. But the test went awry, starting a fire in a reactor and leading to one of the largest nuclear disasters in history. Smoke from the fire and a second explosion launched radioactive elements into the atmosphere, scattering them over the surrounding fields and towns.
Chernobyl is generally recognized as the worst nuclear accident on record, directly killing 31 people and causing widespread contamination in Eurasia. It’s estimated that thousands of people will eventually die earlier than they would have due to the cancers caused by their exposure.
Today, 35 years later, scientists are still uncovering the extent of the damage and starting to answer questions about the long-term legacy of radiation exposure on power plant workers, the people in the nearby community, and even their family members born years later.
READ: New studies highlight the possible impact of Chernobyl on genes
- Published on Science Daily, the studies—both conducted by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a branch of the National Institute of Health (NIH)—sought to find what kind of changes the exposure to carcinogenic ionizing radiation had on those who came into contact with the explosion.
WIPP completes maintenance outage, intends to up shipments of nuclear waste post-pandemic
Reinhard Knerr, manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office said WIPP will resume accepting shipments of low-level transuranic waste from DOE sites around the country and will continue to emplace the waste for final disposal in WIPP’s underground mine.
By: | currentargus.com April 26, 2021
Shipments and disposal of nuclear waste resumed at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant after a two-month pause in the repository’s primary operations to allow personnel to complete several maintenance projects underground and on the surface.
WIPP completed 97 projects during the maintenance outage which ran from Feb. 15 to April 15, upgrading infrastructure throughout the facility.
The work involved mine operations, waste handling, hoisting, ground control, safety and engineering, and the break included a site-wide power outage to allow electrical work to be completed safely.
The Nuclear Bomb Is Ready: In Italy Soon. The B61-12 has a Nuclear Warhead with 4 “Selectable Power Options”
“It has been officially announced that the new nuclear bomb series production will begin in the fiscal year 2022, beginning October 1, 2021. It is unknown the number of B61-12 bombs that the US will deploy in Italy, Germany, Belgium and Holland to replace the B61s, whose actual number is secret. Satellite photos show renovations that have been carried out at Aviano and Ghedi bases in preparation for the new nuclear bombs’ arrival, the US Air Force F-35A, and Italian Air Force F-35A under US command will be armed with these bombs.”
BY: Manlio Dinucci | globalresearch.ca April 24, 2021
First published on December 3, 2020
***
A video was released on November 23 2020 by Sandia National Laboratories that shows a US F-35A fighter flying at supersonic speed 3000 meters above sea level, launching a B61-12 nuclear bomb (non-nuclear warhead equipped). The bomb did not fall vertically but glided until the tail section rocket ignition gave a rotational motion and the B61-12 (satellite-guided system) headed for the target and hit 42 seconds after launch. The test was carried out on August 25 at the Tonopah shooting range in the Nevada desert.
An official statement confirmed its full success: it was a real nuclear attack, proof that the fighter carried out at supersonic speed and in stealth attitude (with nuclear bombs placed in its internal hold) has the capability to penetrate through enemy defenses.
The B61-12 has a nuclear warhead with four selectable power options at launch depending on the target to hit. It has the ability to penetrate underground, exploding deep to destroy command center bunkers and other underground structures. The Pentagon’s program foresees the construction of about five hundred B61-12 with an estimated cost of roughly 10 billion dollars (so each bomb will cost double what it would cost if it were built entirely of gold).
Minorities threatened by atomic weapons plants in S. Carolina and NM, groups say
“As construction problems mounted, costs rose, and schedules slipped, (and) defendants hid the true status of the project,” the indictment said.
“…Delays and cost overruns — hidden by SCANA officials from the public and state regulators — eventually doomed the effort, making it one of the largest business failures in South Carolina history.”
BY SAMMY FRETWELL | April 22, 2021 thestate.com
A coalition of environmental groups from the southern and western United States is threatening to sue the federal government over plans for plutonium pit factories in South Carolina and New Mexico that would produce components for additional atomic weapons.
In a letter Tuesday to U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, a non-profit law firm said the government should prepare an extensive environmental study before deciding to establish pit production factories at the Savannah River Site near Aiken and the Los Alamos site near Santa Fe, N.M.
African American and Native American communities have been hurt by past activities at the nuclear sites, and President Joe Biden’s administration should consider how the production factories would add to that burden, according to the South Carolina Environmental Law Project, a non-profit legal service in South Carolina.
Nine environmental groups, including SRS Watch, the Gullah Geechee Sea Island Coalition, Tri-Valley Cares of California and Nuclear Watch New Mexico, are among those seeking more study.
The law project’s letter also was sent to the National Nuclear Security Administration, a division of the energy department.
“The plans of DOE and NNSA to expand this production program will saddle the already-burdened communities represented by these groups with a significant amount of nuclear waste and pollution,’’ the letter from lawyer Leslie Lenhardt said.
Her letter said the pit production efforts are in “complete contravention’’ to an executive order by President Biden that federal agencies weigh the impact their policies and plans have on disadvantaged communities.
Groups Notify Biden Admin of Impending Lawsuit Over Nuclear Bomb Core Plans
Multi-state coalition says DOE’s plans to massively expand plutonium pit production violate a major environmental law and constitutes an environmental injustice.
Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico commented, “Instead of maintaining the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile, NNSA may actually undermine it because all future pit production is for speculative new-design nuclear weapons. This is a colossal and unnecessary waste of taxpayers’ money on top of already wasted taxpayers’ money.”
CHARLESTON, S.C. — A coalition of public interest organizations notified (PDF below) the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) urging a comprehensive review of plans to vastly ramp up production of nuclear bomb cores at the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
In Tuesday’s letter to department officials, the groups say this lack of review violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and would saddle already-burdened communities nearby the two DOE sites with significant quantities of toxic and radioactive waste, contravening President Biden’s executive order of making environmental justice a part of the mission of every agency.
Sparks flying from nuclear waste barrel prompt investigation
Flawed packing of radioactive waste caused sparks to fly from a container at Los Alamos National Laboratory, prompting evacuation of the work area and later the underground disposal site near Carlsbad where two similarly packed canisters were stored.
| santafenewmexican.com April 15, 2021
The sparking caused no injuries, damage or radiation to be released, according to a letter the lab wrote to the New Mexico Environment Department.
But any combustion involving transuranic nuclear waste is deemed dangerous and calls up memories of the 2014 incident in which a ruptured container from Los Alamos closed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Southern New Mexico for three years and cost almost $2 billion to clean up.
Environment, Public Health On The Way To Better Protection As Environment Department Receives Budget Increase
“After a decade of budget cuts, the New Mexico Environment Department’s (NMED) base budget will increase by 21.3% for the upcoming state fiscal year starting July 1, 2021. The additional $2.8 million will be a recurring increase to NMED’s operating budget. NMED’s overall operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year is approximately $93.4 million.”
NMED NEWS | LOS ALAMOS REPORTER April 14, 2021
“Starting in July, the New Mexico Environment Department will expand its efforts to safeguard communities and our environment,” said NMED Cabinet Secretary James Kenney. “Budget is policy and this is a clear investment in the health of New Mexicans and their environment.”
NMED’s budget is a combination of state general fund, federal funding, and revenues collected for various permits and licenses. Starting July 1, 2021, the general fund portion of NMED’s budget will increase from $13.1 million to $15.9 million – an increase of $2.8 million. The remainder of NMED’s budget is $77.5 million (federal funding and revenues collected for permits/licenses).
Offline Iowa Nuclear Plant Eyed as Site of Solar Project
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A decommissioned eastern Iowa nuclear plant could become the site of a new massive solar energy project.
NextEra Energy of Florida on Tuesday laid out plans in a meeting with nearby landowners to build a solar farm near the now-idle Duane Arnold Energy Center in Palo, The Gazette of Cedar Rapids reported.
The company said the project could bring in a $700 million capital investment and about 300 construction jobs. The solar farm would stretch across 3,500 acres near the plant and would produce up to 690 megawatts of solar energy — more than the nuclear plant had generated.
“We’re also hoping to accompany that solar project with up to 60 megawatts of AC-coupled batteries,” project manager Kimberly Dickey said in the meeting. Battery storage allows a company to store energy for use during peak energy-use times.
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant aims to expand underground facility to hold nuclear waste
“WIPP is supposed to be limited. The state did not agree to 12 panels.”
By: | currentargus.com April 15, 2021
A plan to build two new areas to dispose of nuclear waste began taking shape at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant after the U.S. Department of Energy published a report on the feasibility of adding an 11th and 12th waste panel to the underground nuclear waste repository.
Japan To Dump Wastewater From Wrecked Fukushima Nuclear Plant Into Pacific Ocean
Japan’s government announced a decision to begin dumping more than a million tons of treated but still radioactive wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in two years.
| npr.org April 13, 2021
The plant was severely damaged in a 2011 magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami that left about 20,000 people in northeast Japan dead or missing.
Despite Tokyo’s assurances that discharging wastewater will not pose a threat to people or the environment, the decision was roundly criticized by the local fishing community, environmental groups and Japan’s neighbors. Within hours of the announcement, protesters rallied outside government offices in Tokyo and Fukushima.
Fukushima Wastewater Will Be Released Into the Ocean, Japan Says
| beyondnuclear.org April 13, 2021
The government says the plan is the best way to dispose of water used to prevent the ruined nuclear plant’s damaged reactor cores from melting.
As reported by the New York Times.
The New York Times also ran a companion piece, focused on the official international protest of the ocean dumping, as by the neighboring governments of South Korea, China, and Taiwan.
The Washington Post has also reported on this story.
Thom Hartmann interviewed Beyond Nuclear’s Kevin Kamps on his national radio show (“Fukushima Nuclear Fish Coming to Your Plate, Happy?”). Here is the write up:
More nuclear waste is about to be released into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima. Where it will be absorbed by plants, eaten by small fish, who are eaten by bigger fish, and concentrated through a process called “bioaccumulation.” Pretty soon those fish end up on your plate… Looking forward to a swim off the west coast? Enjoying your fish?
Here is the link to the recording of the interview.
[Corrections: The actual volume of radioactive wastewater to be dumped in the ocean is currently enough to fill around 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools; the dumping is not set to begin until a couple years from now, not before the Tokyo Olympics.]
Environmental Racism, Environmental Justice
“When uranium mining occurred in white communities, the waste it produced was removed from the proximity of the residents. This level of clean-up did not take place when uranium mining occurred close to low-income communities of color”
By: | snakeriveralliance.org April 10, 2021
Those living near Nuclear Power Plants (NPP’s) face extreme health risks. Blood, thyroid, breast, and other forms of cancer have the potential to form due to the various types of radioactive emissions that escape the NPP’s through the air, water, and soil.
The World Nuclear Association and The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) claim that exposure to low-level radiation is undetectable and not unsafe, yet countless studies confirm the danger of the radiation that occurs during normal operation at an NPP. According to Dean Kyne and Bob Bolin, Children are especially vulnerable to this exposure.
Toxic incinerators, uranium mines, atomic reactors, and other nuclear dumping sites are generally located on cheap land where there are limited resources and little organized opposition (Jantz, p. 249). Unfortunately, because of this, they are often located in Black, Indigenous, and low-income communities that suffer the devastating consequences of improperly handled nuclear waste and pollution.
DOE Planning to Increase Down-Blended Plutonium Shipments to Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
Savannah River Site is the third largest shipper of waste to WIPP, with 1,679 as of April 3, per the latest records from WIPP.
By: | currentargus.com April 7, 2021
Federal nuclear waste managers are planning to ramp up shipments of plutonium from a site in South Carolina for final disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeast New Mexico.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) began preparing equipment at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in Aiken, South Carolina used to package and inspect drums of the waste before shipping to WIPP where it will be permanently disposed of in the repository’s underground salt formation.
The plutonium waste will be inspected to verify that it meets the criteria required for emplacement at WIPP, which is used to dispose of low-level transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste – mostly clothing items and equipment radiated during nuclear activities.
Scotland Reaches Green Landmark – Scotland generated 97.4% of its electricity demand from renewables last year
By: Juan Cole | scheerpost.com
In 2011, Scotland’s government, urged on by visionaries like Richard Dixon, set itself the ambitious goal to get 100% of its electricity from renewables by 2020. At that time, it only only got about a fourth from clean energy sources, and a lot of that was hydro.
The report card is in for 2020 and Scotland generated 97.4% of its electricity demand from renewables last year, just a whisker less than the 100% goal.
Scotland will host the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in a few months, and is well placed to assert climate leadership.
Scotland no longer has a coal plant, and its one natural gas plant is under-utilized and seems likely to close in a few years.
DOE’s NNSA Reveals it’s Out of Money. Flat Broke. Busted. Nothing Left for Beneficial Nuclear Non-Proliferation Program to Convert Reactor from Weapon-Grade Uranium Fuel
By: SRS Watch | srswatch.com
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has revealed that it has spent all of our money. Busted flat. Nothing left. Nada. Zilch. Nichts.
Well, that’s what it seems like at the NNSA has notified GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy that there are no funds available to convert a test reactor in Vallecitos, California from weapon-grade uranium (highly enriched uranium, HEU) to low-enriched uranium (LEU), as part of an nuclear non-proliferation effort.
On March 25, 2021, NNSA told GE Hitac hi Nuclear Energy: “you are hereby notified that Department of Energy funding will not be available in fiscal year 2021 to complete the conversion of NTR to LEU fuel.” And GE subsequently told the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that ” DOE funding is not currently available for conversion of the NTR fuel.”
See: “GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas, LLC – Annual Statement of Non-availability of Federal Government Funding for Conversion from HEU to LEU for VNC Nuclear Test Reactor (NTR) at https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML21084A808
BUT WAIT! NNSA continues to front for boosters and contractors engaged in project to convert the abandoned plutonium fuel (MOX) plant at the Savannah River Site into the SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant (PBP) at a cost of $4.6 billion (add higher number if you wish) by 2030 (add any date you wish). So, there seems to be money available for projects dangerous to our national security – making plutonium pits for unneeded and provocative new nuclear weapons – but not a penny left to get HEU out of commerce. This confirms that the priorities of NNSA are totally screwed up and that it’s placing contractor enrichment and parochial politics above national security. Congress must make sure that the HEU conversion program is fully funded and that the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (with W87-1 warhead) and the new SLBM (with W93 warhead) – the first new weapons to get new plutonium pits – are terminated and funded halted. As in nada, zilch, nothing.
The New Shaft Permit Modification Part 3: Your Comments and the May 17th Public Hearing
As demanded by organizations and individuals, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) has scheduled a public hearing on adding a New Utility Shaft to the WIPP permit. The hearing will start at noon on Monday, May 17, 2021. Hundreds of people commented on the proposed new shaft in 2019 and 2020, 97 percent of whom objected to WIPP expansion and the new shaft.
NMED allowed the Department of Energy (DOE) to bypass the public process and start digging the new shaft with just a Temporary Authorization. But after receiving so many public comments in 2020 against the new shaft and against the Temporary Authorization, NMED stopped the construction of the shaft until after the public hearing. Public comments do make a difference!
You can comment now on the proposed new WIPP shaft, which is part of DOE’s plan to expand WIPP and operate it forever, rather than developing new repositories. The plan violates existing limits set in federal law, state agreements, the WIPP Permit, and DOE’s decades-old social contract with New Mexicans.
Your comments and participation can help stop the new shaft and DOE’s WIPP expansion plan!
Santa Fe City Council rejects LANL coalition agreement
By: Sean P. Thomas, The Santa Fe New Mexican | sfnewmexican.com March 31, 2021
The Santa Fe City Council has rejected an amended joint powers agreement with the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities over concerns about the organization’s impact and one councilor’s plan to introduce a measure removing the city from the group.
“I don’t think we should just approve an updated JPA because we want to go along to get along,” said City Councilor Renee Villarreal, who noted she intends to propose the city end its affiliation with the coalition. “Some of my colleagues say we should have a seat at the table, but I think we should have it at the right table.”
The council voted 5-3 against the agreement, with Mayor Alan Webber and Councilors Carol Romero-Wirth and Jamie Cassutt-Sanchez voting in favor. City Councilor Michael Garcia, the city’s representative on the coalition, abstained.
Rejecting the agreement does not pull the city out of the organization.
Villarreal has been the loudest critic of the coalition, which was established in 2011 to give communities surrounding Los Alamos National Laboratory more of a voice in its job development and cleanup. She questioned in previous committee meetings how the city stood to benefit.
“Our values have not aligned,” Villarreal said. “I’m trying to understand changing the JPA, what does that change? How does our voice actually get heard since it hasn’t been heard the last 10 years?”
Trinity Downwinders: 75 Years And Waiting
Watch the Hearing with the House Judiciary Committee below, which occurred 3/24/21. Click HERE to visit the website. Click HERE to read the Santa Fe New Mexican article written about the hearing. See Hearing below:
‘Sparking’ nuclear waste drum at Los Alamos National Lab leads to evacuation at WIPP
“A sparking drum of nuclear waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) led to a temporary evacuation of a section of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s underground repository as officials investigated if any other drums of waste emplaced at WIPP posed a similar threat.”
By: Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus March 31, 2021
Investigators later found no one was hurt and no radiation was released, according to a March 12 letter from the lab to the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) Hazardous Waste Bureau.
The lab reported it happened as workers packed a drum of low-level transuranic (TRU) waste on Feb. 26 for delivery and disposal at WIPP.
TRU waste is equipment, clothing materials and other items radiated during nuclear activities.
During the packing process, two high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters were placed into a drum, followed by a “metal waste item,” read the letter from the lab.
The item tore the bag containing the HEPA filters, and sparks were observed coming out of the container when the item contacted the filters.
People downwind of atomic blasts renew push for US payout
“Officials say the team at Sandia is working with researchers from Australia as well as particle-technology researchers who are building a second concentrating solar power facility in Saudi Arabia to test variants of key components.”
By: The Associated Press / March 24, 2021 | apnews.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — In the desert northeast of Las Vegas, residents living along the Nevada-Arizona border would gather on their front porches for bomb parties or ride horses into the fields to watch as the U.S. government conducted atomic tests during a Cold War-era race to build up the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
About 100 of those tests were aboveground, and U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton of Arizona testified during a congressional subcommittee hearing Wednesday that residents at the time marveled at the massive orange mushroom clouds billowing in the distance.
“They had no idea. They were never told that they were being exposed to dangerous cancer-causing radiation,” Stanton said. “As a direct result of the radiation exposure from these tests, thousands of Arizonans have suffered from cancer, entire families have suffered from cancer and far too many have died.”
He and others testified as part of a renewed push for compensation from the U.S. government following uranium mining and nuclear testing carried out during the Cold War.
Sandia Labs to build solar power testing center in New Mexico
“Officials say the team at Sandia is working with researchers from Australia as well as particle-technology researchers who are building a second concentrating solar power facility in Saudi Arabia to test variants of key components.”
By: The Associated Press / March 26, 2021 | kob.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Sandia National Laboratories has been awarded a $25 million contract to build, test and operate a new solar power test facility on its campus in New Mexico.
Using a concentrated beam of sunlight to heat up sand-like particles, lab officials say the system will be able to produce thermal energy for thousands of hours and will have the capacity to store six hours of energy. This heat can be used to spin a turbine or power an engine to generate electricity.
The contract was announced Thursday by the lab and the U.S. Energy Department. The goal of the federal agency is to develop technology that can make concentrating solar power plants more reliable and easier to build using fewer high-cost materials so that they can be more widely commercialized.
Critique of the RCLC Amended Joint Powers Agreement
The Santa Fe City Council will vote on March 31 to adopt or not the Amended Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) among seven local governments and two Pueblos to continue the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC). Separately, at a date yet to be determined, the City Council may consider whether or not to continue participation in the Coalition.
The City of Santa Fe should reject the Amended Joint Powers Agreement because the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities has wholly failed to live up to the stated goals of the original JPA.
- The RCLC was first formed in 2011. Local governments bought into it on the premise that the Coalition would successfully lobby for mission diversification and accelerated cleanup. After spending two million taxpayer dollars on itself the Coalition has been a spectacular failure in both.
- The Amended JPA states: “the Parties share a common interest in assuring that LANL’s missions remain sustainable and diversified…” The Department of Energy (DOE) and Los Alamos County have provided 80% of RCLC’s funding. The County specifically cites the “interdependent needs of LANL and Los Alamos County.” DOE and Los Alamos County explicitly seek expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores, in which the City of Santa Fe does not share a common interest. Expanded pit production is LANL’s overwhelming growth area (270% increase from $308 million in FY 2020 to $847 million in FY 2021). Concerning “common interests,” DOE completely ignores City resolutions calling for resolution of nuclear safety problems before pit production expansion, comprehensive cleanup and a new site-wide environmental impact statement (particularly important for wildfire protection).
Newly Released Documentary Film on Santa Susana Field Lab Airing Nationwide Nov. 14 at 10 pm ET
In the Dark of the Valley is the first feature film to focus on the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a former nuclear and rocket-engine testing site near Los Angeles. The film is an in-depth exploration into the site’s long history of cover-ups and negligence by site owners Boeing, NASA, and the Department of Energy. It also tells the harrowing story of how a community of mothers, led by Melissa Bumstead, have dealt with the struggles of childhood cancer and their new found life of environmental advocacy.
ICBM Information Project – View the Interactive ICBM Timeline
The Pentagon is currently planning to replace its current arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with a brand-new missile force, known as the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, or GBSD.
The GBSD program consists of a like-for-like replacement of all 400 Minuteman III missiles that are currently deployed across Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming, and will also include a full set of test-launch missiles, as well as upgrades to the launch facilities, launch control centers, and other supporting infrastructure. The GBSD program will keep ICBMs in the United States’ nuclear arsenal until 2075, and is estimated to cost approximately $100 billion (in Then Year dollars) in acquisition fees and $264 billion (in Then Year dollars) throughout its life-cycle.
Examining the Need to Expand Eligibility Under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
When: Wednesday, March 24, 2021, at 2 pm EDT, noon MDT
Where: https://judiciary.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=4479
At the invitation of Chairman Jerrold Nadler, Tina Cordova, Co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC), will provide written and oral testimony to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties this week to urge the members to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to include the Trinity Downwinders.
Transcript of interview with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Washington’s top diplomat holds roundtable with Japanese media in Tokyo
By: ERI SUGIURA| asia.nikkei.com
TOKYO — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a virtual roundtable with Nikkei Asia and other Japanese media in Tokyo on Wednesday, a day after he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met for “two-plus-two” talks with Japanese counterparts Toshimitsu Motegi and Nobuo Kishi.
Here is an edited transcript of the group interview with Blinken:
— Opening remarks
The partnership between the United States and Japan is absolutely vital. I think it’s vital to our country’s respective citizens to the region, and in so many ways to the world. It really starts with our common commitment to democracy. And I think that’s especially significant today because democracy is under challenge and under threat in ways that it hasn’t been before, certainly not in recent years, particularly from autocratic countries were on the rise around the world.
Explosively Entertaining: Nuclear Weapons on TV
Books, Films & Art of Note | Beyond the Bomb: Maria Diaz-Islas, March
1. Jericho (2006-2008)
This show’s passionate fanbase fought tooth and nail to keep it running before CBS canceled it after only two seasons (sounds a lot like some nuclear weapons manufacturers I’ve heard of…). It follows the story of the fictional Kansas town, Jericho, after a nuclear attack on nearby Denver turns the characters’ worlds upside down. The citizens of Jericho struggle as they avoid nuclear fallout, determine how to communicate with the outside world, and try to restore life back to the way it was before the explosion. The post-apocalyptic plot is also riddled with drama, as the characters’ near-death experiences and the loss of loved ones force them to question whether they were truly happy with their former ways of life, reminiscent of living through the COVID-19 pandemic today.
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BACK FROM THE BRINK: ENDING NUCLEAR WEAPONS BEFORE THEY END US
Opportunities Under the Biden Administration to Take Action
EVENT VIDEOS AND RESOURCES: Click below to view video recordings, learning resources and actions you can take to eliminate nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war.
preventnuclearwar.org/enw-resources
Former Nuclear Watch New Mexico Intern Alicia Sanders-Zakre Presentation on What the Entry into Force of the TPNW Mean in the United States:
The US Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force: A Post-Cold War INTERACTIVE Timeline
The Pentagon is currently planning to replace its current arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with a brand-new missile force, known as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD); it is estimated to cost approximately $100 billion in acquisition fees and $264 billion throughout its lifecycle until 2075 (in Then-Year dollars).
Click the link below to find a comprehensive timeline of all relevant actions taken relating to the ICBM force since the end of the Cold War, including force posture alterations, international treaties, congressional efforts, government studies, and milestones in the GBSD acquisition process.
The US Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force: A Post-Cold War Timeline
Links between Box Elder landfill, California business charged in radioactive waste scandal emerge
“[Bradley] Angel, with Green Action, says his organization is relieved that Tetra Tech EC has been taken off the Hunter’s Point cleanup but still worries about all projects Tetra Tech is involved in.
“Promontory Point Resource’s application in Utah stresses the convenient value of superfund cleanup sites in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tetra Tech, which designed the Promontory landfill, has also been deeply invested in other northern California superfund projects. Besides Hunter’s Point, documents from the Environmental Protection Agency and news accounts show the company is actively involved in cleanups at other Bay Area superfunds like the Alameda Naval Air Station and McLellan Air Force Base. All these sites contain radioactive contaminants.”
By: Eric Peterson / Special to the Standard-Examiner | standard.net March 19, 2021
After sitting empty for years on the north shore of the Great Salt Lake in Box Elder County, Promontory Point Resources is trying once again to receive out-of-state waste for its landfill after abandoning a previous attempt in 2018.
In its new Class V landfill application with the state Department of Environmental Quality, the company talks about the lucrative market in contaminated soils from superfund cleanup sites in northern California.
“The full market demand for excavated soil disposal from just counties around the San Francisco Bay appears to have an average in the range of 250,000 to 350,000 tons per year,” the document states.
The report does not mention many sites by name, although they are very well known in California.
Cap on Trident nuclear warhead stockpile to rise by more than 40%
Boris Johnson announcement on Tuesday will end 30 years of gradual disarmament
By: Tricia Ennis | 13abc.com
Britain is lifting the cap on the number of Trident nuclear warheads it can stockpile by more than 40%, Boris Johnson will announce on Tuesday, ending 30 years of gradual disarmament since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The increased limit, from 180 to 260 warheads, is contained in a leaked copy of the integrated review of defence and foreign policy, seen by the Guardian. It paves the way for a controversial £10bn rearmament in response to perceived threats from Russia and China.
The review also warns of the “realistic possibility” that a terrorist group will “launch a successful CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear] attack by 2030”, although there is little extra detail to back up this assessment.
Santa Fe’s benefit from LANL coalition questioned
“We have RCLC, which is funded primarily by the Department of Energy funds, yet DOE doesn’t necessarily listen to the resolutions that we put forward about reducing plutonium pit production. They don’t ask us what we think as city of Santa Fe residents.”
By: Sean P. Thomas, The Santa Fe New Mexican | sfnewmexican.com March 18th, 2021
Mar. 18—Concerns from City Councilor Renee Villarreal over how the city of Santa Fe would benefit by remaining in an amended joint power agreement with the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities continued during Wednesday night’s Quality of Life Committee meeting.
Santa Fe is one of nine cities, counties, towns and tribal governments that make up the regional coalition, which was established in 2011 to give communities in Northern New Mexico more say in decision-making related to job development and cleanup at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Villarreal, however, questioned how the coalition advocates for city policy stances on requests for expanded cleanup at the site and the reduction of plutonium pit production.