MORUROA FILES: Investigation into French nuclear tests in the Pacific
Poisoned legacy
Leukemia, lymphoma, cancer of the thyroid, lung, breast, stomach … In Polynesia, the experience of French nuclear tests is written in the flesh and blood of the inhabitants. Strontium has eaten into bones, cesium has eaten away at muscles and genitals, iodine has seeped into the thyroid.
The story of this largely unknown health disaster began on July 2, 1966. On that day, the army carried out the Aldebaran fire, the first of the 193 tests fired from the nuclear atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa until 1996. The first , also, of a series of tests among the most contaminating in the history of the French nuclear program: the tests in the open air. Between 1966 and 1974, the military carried out 46 such explosions.
Disclose and Interprt, in collaboration with the Science & Global Security program at Princeton University (USA), investigated the consequences of atmospheric testing in French Polynesia for two years. With the help of thousands of declassified military documents, hundreds of hours of calculations and dozens of unpublished testimonies, this investigation demonstrates for the first time the extent of the radioactive fallout that struck the inhabitants of this vast territory as the ‘Europe.
According to our calculations, based on a scientific reassessment of the doses received, approximately 110,000 people were infected, almost the entire Polynesian population at the time. Modelling toxic clouds to support, we also unveil how the French authorities have concealed the true impact of nuclear testing on the health of Polynesians for more than fifty years.
On February 18, 2020, the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (Inserm) published, at the request of the Ministry of Defense, a report on “the health consequences of nuclear tests” in French Polynesia. According to this expertise, its authors felt that they could not “make a solid conclusion” to the existence of “links between the fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests and the occurrence of radiation-induced pathologies”. And the college of experts stressed the need to “refine the estimates of doses received by the local population and by civilian and military personnel”. This is precisely what we have endeavored to do in this investigation.
Why the World Needs a New UN Study on the Effects of Nuclear War
“Given that the United States relies on a strategy of nuclear deterrence, which seeks to obtain security by threatening nuclear war, it seems obvious that this country should want to fully understand the risks it is running.”
On the persistence of U.S. nuclear deterrence policy: bostonreview.net/articles/the-extortionists-doctrine/
“Nuclear-armed states do not run these risks alone. The rest of the world can be affected by nuclear war via radioactive fallout, environmental changes such as nuclear winter, and disruption of the global economic system. Almost any nuclear war would be a global problem.”
By Laura Grego, Union of Concerned Scientists | October 29 blog.ucsusa.org
Coming up for a vote in early November is a resolution advanced by the Ireland and New Zealand delegations to the United Nations (UN) to commission a critical new scientific study on the effects of nuclear war. The study, which would be the first under UN auspices in more than 30 years, would be run by an independent scientific panel of 21 members and would examine the physical effects and societal consequences of a nuclear war on local, regional, and planetary scales. It would be comprehensive in its scope, including the climate, environmental, and radiological effects of nuclear war and how these would impact public health, global social and economic systems, agriculture, and ecosystems over periods of days, weeks, and decades.
By Zia Mian, Scientific American | October 28 scientificamerican.com
At the United Nations, an effort is underway in the General Assembly to establish an international panel of scientists to assess, communicate and advance our current knowledge of the effects of nuclear war. The effort would lead to a more fully informed and inclusive global debate on how much and how little everyone—including the nuclear armed states themselves—actually know of the catastrophic large-scale long-term human, environmental, ecological, economic and societal impacts of using nuclear weapons. Ideally, the findings could build a basis for action toward the total elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide and secure a safer future for people and our planet.
Everyone, not just scientists and their respective professional societies, in all nations, including the nuclear-armed states and their allies, should speak in support of this effort to build a shared understanding of the risks posed by nuclear war plans and nuclear deterrence threats.
In September the U.N.’s member states overwhelmingly agreed on the Pact for the Future, which declares: “A nuclear war would visit devastation upon all humankind.” But it has been over 30 years since the last report by the U.N. on this threat.
BOSTON REVIEW: The Extortionist’s Doctrine
“Thus massive second strike—the key to deterrence defined as the practice of preventing nuclear war by discouraging a first strike—somersaults into the perceived position of a first strike.
‘The bar of deterrence,’ [former head of US Strategic Command] Butler writes, ‘ratchets higher, igniting yet another cycle of trepidation, worst-case assumptions and ever-mounting levels of destructive capability.'”
By Elaine Scarry, The Boston Review | October 2024 bostonreview.net
The key structure of the doctrine of nuclear deterrence is audible in the September 4, 2024, speech by U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Cara Abercrombie: “Any nuclear attack by the DPRK against the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime.” The doctrine, which the United States has embraced since the Cold War, aims to prevent an adversary from launching a nuclear weapon by assuring that any first strike will be followed by a retaliatory second strike, whose effects will equal or exceed the original damage and may eliminate the adversary altogether. This annihilating reflex of deterrence is equally audible in the quiet words of the Department of Defense in its web page on “America’s Nuclear Triad,” its sea-based, land-based, and air-based delivery platforms: “The triad, along with assigned forces, provide 24/7 deterrence to prevent catastrophic actions from our adversaries and they stand ready, if necessary, to deliver a decisive response, anywhere, anytime.”
Framed wholly as defensive and preventative (and from day to day, largely successful in deflecting our attention from the actual first use stance the country has had for nearly eighty years), deterrence would almost have the aura of peacekeeping, were it not the mental platform undergirding our fourteen Ohio-class submarines (each able to singlehandedly destroy one of Earth’s seven continents), four hundred land-based ICBMs, and sixty-six B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers.
Although the physical act of unbuilding the nuclear architecture is easily within reach—it would take at most four weeks to dismantle all the nuclear triggers throughout the world, a decisive because disabling first step—the mental architecture of deterrence is the major impediment to doing so.
Searchlight NM: Plutonium just had a bad day in court
In a major decision whose consequences are still being assessed, a federal judge declared that plutonium pit production — one ingredient in the U.S. government’s $1.5 trillion nuclear weapons expansion — has to be performed in accordance with the nation’s strongest environmental law
“…The court found that the agencies charged with reviving the nuclear weapons complex have not properly evaluated the perils that could come with turning out plutonium pits at two different sites, thousands of miles apart. For the plaintiffs in this case — which include Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition — Lewis’s decision to intervene is a milestone.”
“We’ve had a pretty significant victory here on the environmental front,” said Tom Clements, the director of Savannah River Site Watch. “Nonprofit public interest groups are able to hold the U.S. Department of Energy accountable.”
Over the past twenty-plus years, there have been four attempts by NNSA to expand pit production through the NEPA process. All failed. According to Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, this string of defeats could have led to the NNSA’s circumvention of the NEPA process during this round of planning for pit production. Adhering to the rules of the NEPA process, he added, “benefits both the public and the government.”
By , Searchlight New Mexico | October 17, 2024 searchlightnm.org
Most Americans don’t seem aware of it, but the United States is plunging into a new nuclear arms race. At the same time that China is ramping up its arsenal of nuclear weapons, Russia has become increasingly bellicose. After a long period of relative dormancy, the U.S. has embarked on its own monumental project to modernize everything in its arsenal — from bomb triggers to warheads to missile systems — at a cost, altogether, of at least $1.5 trillion.
Los Alamos National Laboratory plays a vital role as one of two sites set to manufacture plutonium “pits,” the main explosive element in every thermonuclear warhead. But as a recent court ruling makes clear, the rush to revive weapons production has pushed environmental considerations — from nuclear waste and increases in vehicular traffic to contamination of local waterways, air and vegetation — to the wayside.
OPINION: Nevada has already passed the test
“A return to explosive nuclear testing in the United States would almost certainly trigger a return to explosive nuclear testing in Russia, China and probably other nuclear-armed states.
…America’s nuclear veterans and local downwinders understand all too well the health risks of radiation exposure from above ground nuclear explosive testing conducted until 1963.”
By Ernest J. Moniz, The Nevada Independent | October 16, 2024 thenevadaindependent.com
Many Nevadans remember the days when the United States was driven by necessity to conduct explosive nuclear tests of America’s nuclear arsenal. By testing, we sought to prove the designs of our nuclear weapons and impress on any potential adversary the futility of striking America or our allies. Today, we are long past the point when explosive nuclear testing is required to ensure their effectiveness, and our adversaries well understand their power. Ignoring these essential facts would put us at peril.
Since the first nuclear weapon test explosion in New Mexico in 1945, the United States conducted more than 1,000 such tests. Nine hundred and twenty-eight of those, or 90 percent, have been conducted in Nevada, the last in 1992, more than 30 years ago.
Now, voices from outside Nevada are making the case for a resumption of nuclear explosive testing in the desert, just 65 miles from Las Vegas. That case is not justified by science or military necessity, especially when a resumption of U.S. nuclear testing could trigger an even more precarious nuclear arms race abroad and endanger the physical and economic health of Nevadans at home.
New Interactive Series from The New York Times: “The Price” of New U.S. Nuclear Weapons
The output at Rocky Flats, which at one point during the Cold War hit 1,000 pits per year, dwarfs the modern ambitions of Los Alamos. Still, the new production is expected to generate levels of radiological and hazardous waste that the lab has not experienced. This comes on top of the contamination already present, which the government estimates will cost some $7 billion to clean up.
“We’re endangering our community for an unnecessary arms race that puts us all at risk,” says Jay Coghlan, the executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a Santa Fe-based watchdog.
By W.J. Hennigan | Photographs by An-My Lê – THE NEW YORK TIMES October 10, 2024 nytimes.com
Opinion: America Is Updating Its Nuclear Weapons. The Price: $1.7 Trillion Over 30 Years.
Letter To the Editor in Response to the Article Above by Dr. Ira Helfand:
Re “The Staggering Cost of America’s Nuclear Gamble,” by W.J. Hennigan (Opinion, “At the Brink” series, Oct. 13):
Mr. Hennigan says, almost in passing, that “nuclear weapons do deter our adversaries.”
There is a lot to unpack in these six words. There certainly are situations in which one country’s nuclear weapons do deter its adversaries. Russia’s threats to use its nuclear weapons have clearly deterred the United States and NATO from doing more to support Ukraine.
But does deterrence guarantee that these weapons will not be used? Because a failure of deterrence will cause a catastrophe beyond reckoning.
A nuclear war between the United States and Russia could kill hundreds of millions of people in the first afternoon, and the ensuing climate disruption and famine could kill three-quarters of humanity over the next two years. Is there any conceivable benefit that can be derived from possessing these weapons that is worth running this terrible risk?
There have been many near misses already during the nuclear weapons era, crises where certain countries actually began preparations to launch nuclear weapons.
As former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara pointed out, we have not survived this far into the nuclear era because we knew what we were doing. Rather, as McNamara put it, “It was luck that prevented nuclear war.”
The idea that deterrence makes us safe is a dangerous myth. As our highest national security priority, we should be actively seeking a world without nuclear weapons. We don’t know if such an effort can succeed; we have never tried. We do know what will happen if deterrence fails.
Ira Helfand
Northampton, Mass.
The writer is a former president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which received the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.
Santa Fe County commissioners object to environmental finding on LANL power line
“‘This is sacred land. We have alternatives. There are other ways to do this,’ said Commissioner Camilla Bustamante. ‘I couldn’t be in more support of finding an alternative to taking a power line and putting a scar on something that is not equal to just any other physical location.'”
By Cormac Dodd, Santa Fe New Mexican | October 8, 2024 santafenewmexican.com
The Energy Department just made one plutonium pit. Making more is uncertain
Coinciding with NNSA’s announcement of the first diamond-stamped pit, a US District Court ruled that the Energy Department and the NNSA violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with pit production, requiring the agency to conduct a programmatic environmental impact assessment.
This was a victory for transparency and the community groups—among them, Savannah River Site Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs), and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition—who, for years, have been asking for such an assessment.
By Dylan Spaulding, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists | October 10 thebulletin.org
Two conflicting developments arose this month in US efforts to produce new plutonium pits for its nuclear weapons: The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced it had produced a warhead-ready pit—the explosive core of a nuclear weapon—for the first time in decades, and a federal court ruled that NNSA will be required to consider the cumulative environmental and health impacts of its pit production program.
Overshadowing these events is a vigorous debate over the necessity for new pits at all. Previous analyses have found that plutonium pits have viable lifespans well beyond the expected service life of the current stockpile, whereas production of pits for new weapons is part of a sweeping US nuclear modernization that raises concern over the future of arms control and any possibility for stockpile reductions at a time of deteriorating international relations.
Continue reading
Judge finds plutonium production plans violated environmental laws
Both sides of the case are ordered to present a joint plan to address violations by Oct. 25
One of the plaintiffs, Jay Coghlan, the executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico called that a “pretty large hurdle to overcome,” for both parties. It’s unclear what happens if the parties fail to present a joint solution.
Source NM | October 8 sourcenm.com
U.S. energy officials illegally neglected to study impacts to the environment in efforts to increase plutonium production for nuclear weapons in New Mexico and South Carolina, a federal judge has ruled.
South Carolina District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis sided with environmental, anti-nuclear proliferation and community groups last week who sued the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which oversees the nuclear weapons stockpile as part of the U.S. Department of Energy.
The U.S. is investing billions into restarting the manufacture of plutonium “pits,” the grapefruit-sized spheres developed for nuclear weapons. The federal government halted its manufacturing program at the Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado in 1989 after an FBI raid due to safety concerns and environmental crimes.
The stated goal has been to produce 80 pits per year starting in 2030, split between Savannah River facility proposed in South Carolina and at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The project has faced safety concerns and delays. The Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, found the NNSA had no comprehensive timeline or cost estimate for pit production, but estimates it’s in the tens of billions of dollars.
Community, environment and anti-nuclear groups brought the lawsuit in 2021, alleging that the NNSA failed to consider alternatives to its two-site proposal and violated the law by not reviewing or changing its last analysis from 2008, when it approved the decisions to move forward in 2020.
Continue reading
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Sites Violated Rules, Judge Finds
In a statement Jay Coghlan, the director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico and a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, said, “These agencies think they can proceed with their most expensive and complex project ever without required public analyses and credible cost estimates.”
By , Newsweek | October 4 newsweek.com
A federal judge ruled this week that some nuclear weapons sites in the U.S. do violate environmental regulations.
On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the National Nuclear Security Administration violated environmental regulations by failing to adequately assess the environmental impact of its plan to expand plutonium pit production at facilities in South Carolina and New Mexico.
The case involves a lawsuit that targeted a 2018 plan to establish two plutonium pit production sites—one at South Carolina’s Savannah River and the other at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Plaintiffs argued the plan was based on an outdated environmental impact study, which failed to properly assess the implications of simultaneous production at both locations. They also insisted the plan weakened safety and accountability measures for the multibillion-dollar nuclear weapons program and its associated waste disposal.
In the ruling on Thursday, Judge Mary Geiger Lewis said, “Defendants neglected to properly consider the combined effects of their two-site strategy and have failed to convince the court they gave thought to how those effects would affect the environment.”
‘Significant Victory’: Court Rules Planned Plutonium Pits for New Nukes Violate US Law
“Public scrutiny is especially important because the activities at issue here, by their very nature, result in the production of dangerous weapons and extensive amounts of toxic and radioactive waste,” a plaintiffs’ lawyer said.
By Olivia Rosane, CommonDreams | October 3 commondreams.com
In what advocates called a major win for frontline communities and the rule of law, a U.S. district court judge ruled on Monday that the federal government could not move forward with producing plutonium pits—”the heart and trigger of a nuclear bomb“—at two proposed sites in New Mexico and South Carolina.
Instead, Judge Mary Geiger Lewis agreed with a coalition of nonprofit community groups that the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to fully consider alternatives to producing the pits at New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory and South Carolina’s Savannah River Site (SRS). Now, the federal government must conduct a full environmental impact statement of how pit production would work at sites across the U.S.
“This is a significant victory that will ensure NEPA’s goal of public participation is satisfied,” attorney for the plaintiffs Ben Cunningham, of the South Carolina Environmental Law Project, said in a statement. “Public scrutiny is especially important because the activities at issue here, by their very nature, result in the production of dangerous weapons and extensive amounts of toxic and radioactive waste. I hope the public will seize the upcoming opportunity to review and comment on the federal agencies’ assessment.”
The Bulletin – Nowhere to hide: How a nuclear war would kill you — and almost everyone else.
“The impacts of nuclear war on agricultural food systems would have dire consequences for most humans who survive the war and its immediate effects.
The overall global consequences of nuclear war—including both short-term and long-term impacts—would be even more horrific causing hundreds of millions—even billions—of people to starve to death.”
By François Diaz-Maurin, Design by Thomas Gaulkin | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | October 20 thebulletin.org
This summer, the New York City Emergency Management department released a new public service announcement on nuclear preparedness, instructing New Yorkers about what to do during a nuclear attack. The 90-second video starts with a woman nonchalantly announcing the catastrophic news: “So there’s been a nuclear attack. Don’t ask me how or why, just know that the big one has hit.” Then the PSA video advises New Yorkers on what to do in case of a nuclear attack: Get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned to media and governmental updates.
But nuclear preparedness works better if you are not in the blast radius of a nuclear attack. Otherwise, there’s no going into your house and closing your doors because the house will be gone. Now imagine there have been hundreds of those “big ones.” That’s what even a “small” nuclear war would include. If you are lucky not to be within the blast radius of one of those, it may not ruin your day, but soon enough, it will ruin your whole life.
Today is the 10th Annual International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
Today, September 26th, 2024, marks a significant milestone—the 10th annual UN-designated International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. This day, established to promote global nuclear disarmament, saw a high-level meeting at the United Nations. During the event, UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a powerful message, urging nuclear-armed states to
“stop gambling with humanity’s future.”
He emphasized the urgent need for countries to honor their disarmament obligations and, as a critical first step, commit to never using nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Guterres also called for maximum transparency from nuclear-weapon states in all matters related to their arsenals.
The push for nuclear disarmament is not only a global concern but also resonates deeply on a local level. Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, has been a vocal advocate for eliminating nuclear weapons. As the leader of an archdiocese in a state that houses key nuclear facilities, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Wester has taken a moral stand against the existence and potential use of nuclear arms. His 2022 pastoral letter, Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament, highlighted the ethical and spiritual necessity of eliminating these weapons, emphasizing their devastating potential and the grave responsibility to protect future generations from such destruction.
As we reflect on the long, devasting history of the nuclear weapons complex, leaders like Archbishop Wester remind us that the path to a world without nuclear weapons is not just a political or strategic issue but also a profound moral imperative. Through sustained international cooperation and local advocacy, the vision of a nuclear-free world might one day become a reality.
Plutonium Found in Los Alamos at Levels Comparable to Chernobyl Spark Public Outrage
Extreme contamination in Acid Canyon raises concerns over public safety and environmental health.
ZME Science | September 20, 2024 zmescience.com
A new study has revealed alarming levels of plutonium contamination near Los Alamos, New Mexico, the site where the first atomic bomb was developed. Radioactive contamination at Los Alamos may sound unsurprising but cleanup efforts by the U.S. government during the 1960s supposedly reduced it to safe levels. Today, the region welcomes many hikers and outdoor enthusiasts who embark on its trails.
The findings have led researchers and watchdog groups to call for immediate federal action. However, the government maintains that the area is safe for recreational use.
The contamination is concentrated in Acid Canyon, a site that once served as a dumping ground for nuclear waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Michael Ketterer, a Northern Arizona University scientist and lead researcher on the project, described the situation as unprecedented in his decades-long career.
“What I found here in Acid Canyon is pretty much the most extreme plutonium contamination scenario . . . in an off-site, uncontrolled environmental setting that I’ve ever seen in my career,” Ketterer told the New Mexico Political Report, adding that the contamination levels are comparable to those found near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.
A Hidden Legacy of Contamination
Acid Canyon’s contamination stems from its history as a disposal site for radioactive waste from 1943 until 1963. The Los Alamos National Laboratory, under the direction of the Department of Defense, piped liquid nuclear waste into the canyon. Over the years, the site has been the focus of cleanup efforts. But Ketterer’s recent findings suggest that those efforts may not have been sufficient at all.
New study makes harrowing discovery in soil near birthplace of atomic bomb: ‘One of the most shocking things I’ve ever stumbled across’
The radioactive material could be absorbed by plants and eventually endanger the rest of the food chain.
The Cooldown | September 20, 2024 thecooldown.com
A new study has made a troubling discovery about the health of ecosystems near Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the atomic bomb was born.
Scientists measured plutonium levels in recreational areas near the nuclear site and found they were similar to those detected at the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site in Ukraine.
What’s happening?
According to the Guardian, a Northern Arizona University research team discovered “extreme concentrations” of plutonium in the soil, plants, and water near Los Alamos.
Michael Ketterer, a NAU scientist and the study’s lead researcher, told the outlet that plutonium concentrations near New Mexico’s Acid Canyon — a popular hiking and recreational spot — were some of the highest he’d ever encountered in public spaces in the U.S. throughout his career.
“This is one of the most shocking things I’ve ever stumbled across in my life,” he told the Guardian, adding that the radioactive material is “hiding in plain sight.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Defense recently unveiled plans to increase production of plutonium pits — a critical part of nuclear weapons — at the Los Alamos site.
Editorial: US Catholics must face up to the nuclear threat, and act
“The silence, given the time, treasure and human resources devoted to the continued development of nuclear weapons, has been deafening. It amounts to a chilling complicity of the nation’s largest Christian community in a mega-death industry.”
National Catholic Reporter | September 17, 2024 ncronline.org
“We can no longer deny or ignore the dangerous predicament we have created for ourselves. We need to start talking about it with one another, all of us, and figure out concrete steps toward abolishing nuclear weapons and ending the nuclear threat.”
—Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament“
Wester wrote those words in January 2022, a haunting call with a certain biblical resonance coming as they did from a place that doesn’t have a high profile on the ecclesial landscape. It was fitting, then, that a significant step in engaging a public conversation occurred recently at the University of New Mexico — where activists and religious leaders, including Wester and Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, dared to engage with the unthinkable.
New Mexico, as the locale where the nuclear threat was born and where it continues to grow to dimensions beyond imagination, is at the heart of an existential global threat that poses a searing moral question for both church and state. In each realm we are forced to ask as we develop the means to destroy the world: Who are we?
The government is clear in where it is headed and how we define ourselves. Despite the history of hundreds of thousands of gruesome civilian deaths caused by the first uses of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, we have continued unabated in our quest to develop and refine weapons infinitely more destructive than those primitive examples.
The church was less clear, but is changing. Catholic teaching has steadily increased its objections over the decades until it finally, under Pope Francis, now unambiguously condemns even possession of nuclear weapons.
New Mexico forum highlights Catholic views on nuclear disarmament, deterrence
Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe participated in the forum and said efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons can progress when “reasonable and good-willed people enter into a critical conversation.” These are the kinds of discussions Wester sought to stimulate after the 2022 release of his 52-page pastoral letter, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament,” that challenges conventional political thinking that possessing nuclear weapons serves as a deterrence to potential attacks from other nuclear powers.
Wester wrote that the Archdiocese of Santa Fe has a special responsibility to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons since New Mexico hosts two of the nation’s three nuclear weapons laboratories, the Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories. Additionally during World War II, he said, “much of the land for the Los Alamos Lab was seized from Native American ancestral lands and Hispanic homesteaders without adequate compensation, continuing the legacy of colonialism, racism and systemic violence.”
National Catholic Reporter | September 12, 2024 ncronline.org
Tina Cordova has made it her life’s work to shed light on the negative health effects plaguing the people of New Mexico after the U.S. military detonated the world’s first atomic bomb at the Trinity test site July 16, 1945. To grasp the severity of the radiation exposure, Cordova says, “it’s important to understand our way of life.”
New Mexicans in that era relied on rivers and creeks as their main water source, and they ate what they cultivated from the soil. The radiation fallout from the detonation contaminated those sources. “We were maximally exposed,” says Cordova, who was raised in a town 45 miles from where the Trinity bomb was detonated.
Nevadans form anti-nuclear testing coalition amid resumption calls
| September 13, 2024 reviewjournal.com
While Nevada once was a site of the country’s nuclear testing and continues to play a critical role in the maintenance of nation’s nuclear stockpile, some Silver State residents are raising the alarm….
Fate of interim storage at Supreme Court could be decided by October
The Fifth Circuit Court in 2023 ruled that the Atomic Energy Act, which created the NRC, did not give the agency the authority to license storage of spent fuel away from the reactors that created it.
The Exchange Monitor | September 6, 2024 exchangemonitor.com
Supreme Court justices were scheduled Sept. 30 to consider requests to overturn a ban on the private interim storage of spent nuclear fuel, according to a notice published Wednesday.
The two requests stem from a 2023 decision in a lawsuit filed by Texas in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that voided a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license issued to Interim Storage Partners (ISP), a joint venture of Orano USA and Waste Control Specialists.
According to the dockets in both cases, NRC and ISP petitions for high-court review were to be distributed to the nine Supreme Court justices on Sept. 30.
After the justices review the petitions in what is officially called a conference, they will decide whether to hear arguments from attorneys, decide the case based only on briefs filed with the high court since June, or let the Fifth Court ruling stand.
New Mexico pushes feds to send more nuclear waste from Las Alamos to WIPP
“‘Los Alamos National Laboratory must now immediately get to work and fill the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant with legacy waste. All excuses have been voided,’ [NMED Secretary] Kenney said. ‘This is the culmination of years of effort by the Environment Department, with this consent order being one more step in holding the Department of Energy accountable.'”
Carlsbad Current-Argus | September 6, 2024 currentargus.com
New Mexico officials ordered the federal government to remove Cold War-era nuclear waste away from Los Alamos National Laboratory and dispose of some of it at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.
Biden’s ‘new’ nuclear strategy and the super-fuse that sets it off
The military is already upgrading warheads capable of fighting a war with both China and Russia simultaneously
“Although any technically accurate assessment of the physical consequences of the large-scale use of nuclear weapons instantly shows that “winning” a nuclear war has no meaning, the United States has strenuously emphasized the development of nuclear weapons technologies that could only make sense if their intended purpose is for fighting and winning nuclear wars.
The super-fuze is exactly that kind of technology.”
Responsible Statecraft | August 29, 2024 responsiblestatecraft.org
The New York Times reported last week that President Biden has approved a secret nuclear strategy refocusing on Chinese and Russian nuclear forces.
According to the paper, the new nuclear guidance “reorients America’s deterrent strategy” to meet “the need to deter Russia, the PRC (China) and North Korea simultaneously.”
However, Biden’s approval of this strategy is no more than a tacit acknowledgment of a two-decade-long U.S. technical program that has been more than just a “slight modernization” of weapons components, but a dramatic step towards the capability to fight and win nuclear wars with both China and Russia. In other words, there is nothing really “new” here at all, save the very public nature of the strategy’s acknowledgement.
In the face of all of this, Chinese and Russian leaders will have no choice but to implement countermeasures that further increase the already dangerously high readiness of their nuclear forces. This includes intensified worst-case planning that will increase the chances of nuclear responses to false warnings of attack.
The technical source of this vast improvement in U.S. nuclear firepower is a relatively new super fuse or “super fuze” that is already being fitted onto all U.S. strategic ballistic missiles. This fuse more than doubles the ability of the Trident II Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) carrying W-76 100kt warheads to destroy Chinese and Russian nuclear-tipped Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) in hardened silos.
The currently (not fully loaded) U.S. Trident Submarine force carries about 890 W-76 100kt and 400 W-88 475kt warheads. The 400 W-88 warheads have been outfitted with the super-fuze and were originally supposed to have the combination of accuracy and yield to destroy Russian silo-based ICBMs before they are launched. But there are not enough W-88s to attack both Russian and Chinese silo-based ICBMs before they can be launched.
THE GUARDIAN: Plutonium levels near US atomic site in Los Alamos similar to Chornobyl, study finds
Much of the land near the atomic bomb’s birthplace was converted to recreational areas, but toxic waste remains
The Guardian | August 26, 2024 theguardian.com
Soil, plants and water along popular recreation spots near Los Alamos, New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, are contaminated with “extreme concentrations” of plutonium, a new study has found, but calls for the federal government to act have been dismissed.
Michael Ketterer, a Northern Arizona University scientist and lead researcher on the project, said the plutonium levels in and around New Mexico’s Acid Canyon were among the highest he had ever seen in a publicly accessible area in the US during his decades-long career – comparable to what is found in Ukraine at the site of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster.
The radioactive isotopes are “hiding in plain sight”, Ketterer said.
“This is one of the most shocking things I’ve ever stumbled across in my life,” he said.
The paper comes on the heels of the US Department of Defense announcing it will ramp up production of plutonium pits, a core component of nuclear weapons, at Los Alamos. Meanwhile, the US Senate approved a defense bill with expanded funding for those exposed to the government’s radioactive waste. Local public health advocates say they are outraged by the exclusion of the Los Alamos region from the benefits.
Research: Plutonium Levels at Los Alamos Rival Chernobyl’s
Hikers use the New Mexico recreation area without being aware of contamination
, NEWSER | August 26, 2024 newser.com
Los Alamos Researcher Warns of Plutonium in Rec Areas
The federal Atomic Energy Commission turned over New Mexico land around its national laboratory decades ago to Los Alamos County without restricting its use, despite its past as the site where the atomic bomb was developed. Much of it was developed for recreational use. Researchers say there’s a problem: They’ve detected “extreme concentrations” of plutonium in the area, which hikers and others aren’t aware of when they head down a trail, the Guardian reports. “This is one of the most shocking things I’ve ever stumbled across in my life,” said Michael Ketterer of Northern Arizona University, the project’s lead researcher.
Plutonium levels detected around Acid Canyon were among the highest Ketterer said he’s seen in a publicly accessible area in the US, and are comparable to those at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine. People using the trails aren’t in immediate danger, he said, while warning that plutonium can get into water supplies that eventually reach the Rio Grande. It also can enter the food chain through plants or spread widely in ash during a wildfire. The Department of Energy issued a statement saying that the levels were “very low and well within the safe exposure range.” Public health advocates want warning signs to go up for recreational users.
Mapping by a local public health advocacy group, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, that used public records also showed high plutonium levels at sample sites throughout the area, per the Guardian. The research shows “New Mexico will forever be saddled with a radioactive isotope that has a 24,000-year half-life,” said Tina Cordova of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium advocacy group. Ketterer said cleanup—removing the contamination—isn’t practical, per the AP. “It really can’t be undone,” he said.Canyon.
People Harmed by Radiation Exposure Can Forget About Any Federal Compensation
Speaker Mike Johnson killed a proposal to provide benefits to victims of America’s nuclear program.
“It’s really tough to have people say, ‘Nope, sorry that’s too expensive. It wasn’t too expensive to poison you, but it’s too expensive to fix what we did and you aren’t worth it.'”
By Katherine Hapgood, Mother Jones | August 21, 2024 motherjones.com
It wasn’t a difficult choice for Linda Evers, after graduating high school in 1976, to take a job crushing dirt for the Kerr McGee uranium mill, just north of her hometown Grants, New Mexico. Most gigs in town paid $1.75 an hour. This one offered $9 an hour.
She spent seven years working in New Mexico’s uranium mines and mills, driving a truck and loading the ore crusher for much of the late 1970s and early ’80s, including through her pregnancies with each of her children. “When I told them I was pregnant,” Evers, now 66, recalled, “they told me it was okay, I could work until my belly wouldn’t let me reach the conveyor belts anymore.”
Both children were born with health defects—her son with a muscle wrapped around the bottom of his stomach and her daughter without hips. Today, Evers herself suffers from scarring lungs, a degenerative bone and joint disease, and multiple skin rashes. All of which doctors have attributed to radiation exposure.
“We never learned about uranium exposure or any of that. They were killing us. And they knew they were killing us.”
Scientist says there’s legacy plutonium contamination in Los Alamos
‘Extreme plutonium contamination scenario’ identified in research from , soil, water and plant samples taken in Acid Canyon arroyos
, SOURCE NM | August 16, 2024 sourcenm.com
Los Alamos, the Atomic City, is facing a legacy of its nickname.
High levels of plutonium present in samples taken in July from soil, plants and water in Los Alamos’ Acid Canyon may be the oldest contamination in the state, predating the 1945 Trinity Site atomic test, said Michael Ketterer, an analytical chemist and retired professor of chemistry from Northern Arizona University.
“There are some references to contamination being introduced into Acid Canyon starting in 1943,” he said Thursday. “It is very logical to me that this is some of the earliest produced material.”
The legacy plutonium contamination estimated to have lasted into the 1960s is still impacting the land, water and potentially human health, he said in a presentation hosted by Nuclear Watch NM.
“What I’ve found here in Acid Canyon, my friends, is I’d say pretty much the most extreme plutonium contamination scenario I’ve seen in an offsite, uncontrolled environmental setting,” Ketterer said, alluding to thousands of plutonium samples he’s analyzed in his 20-year career.
He said that contamination levels surpass samples he took at private properties around the former plutonium pit production site in Rocky Flats, Colorado.
One concern, which he said warrants immediate federal or state environment protection intervention, was the levels of plutonium contamination in water flows in Acid Canyon.
Scientist describe levels of plutonium near Los Alamos ‘alarmingly high’
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (KRQE) – New findings from a study aimed at researching how much plutonium is in the ground and water near Los Alamos National Laboratory, have the lead scientists concerned.
“I’m just trying to show New Mexicans what the truth is here,” said Dr. Michael Ketterer, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Arizona University. Over the last few months, Dr. Ketterer has collected and analyzed plutonium levels from a trailhead at Acid Canyon in Los Alamos, NM.
“I see a lot of things to be concerned about here,” Dr. Ketterer said.
In his study, Dr. Ketterer says he found “alarmingly high results” of plutonium contamination. Though radiation levels are not high enough to hurt people walking the trail, advocates with Nuclear Watch New Mexico worry about what could happen if a fire broke out, warning that the smoke inhaled could lead to lung cancer.
“Were Acid Canyon to burn in a wildfire, and we know that threat is all too real, that could be dangerous in the form of respirable plutonium that is released to the air through wildfire,” said Jay Coghlan, Executive Director for Nuclear Watch New Mexico.
“We can’t really predict where it’s going to go and how bad it’s going to be,” added Dr. Ketterer about the possibility of a fire happening in the area.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc
Watchdog group reports ‘extreme contamination’ of plutonium at Los Alamos open space
The legacy of environmental waste is “hiding in plain sight” at a popular open space in the heart of Los Alamos that became a dumping ground during the Manhattan Project, according to testing results a nuclear watchdog group released Thursday.
By Daniel J. Chacón [email protected], Santa Fe New Mexican | August 15, 2024 santafenewmexican.com
Soil, plant and water samples collected in July from Acid Canyon — yes, Acid Canyon — revealed “extreme contamination,” including detections of what Nuclear Watch New Mexico said is some of the earliest plutonium produced by humankind.
“What I found here in Acid Canyon [is] pretty much the most extreme contamination scenario I’ve seen in an off-site, uncontrolled environmental setting,” Michael Ketterer, a professor emeritus of chemistry and biochemistry at Northern Arizona University, said during a virtual briefing.
Ketterer, who collected the samples in July with the help of the watchdog group, said he’s analyzed tens of thousands of plutonium samples in a decadeslong career.
“This is way, way, way, way, way at the top end of the charts in terms of how much,” he said. “This is extreme contamination.”
Ketterer said he would compare it to “Chernobyl proximity samples” and samples close to Palomares, Spain, after a B-52 bomber carrying hydrogen bombs collided with a refueling plane in 1966 and coated the seaside town in radioactive dust.
“Hundreds of samples from near Rocky Flats do not come close at all,” he said, referring to a former nuclear weapons production facility in Colorado.
Watchdogs want US to address extreme plutonium contamination in Los Alamos’ Acid Canyon
“This is an unrestricted area. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in the United States,” the professor told reporters. “It’s just an extreme example of very high concentrations of plutonium in soils and sediments. Really, you know, it’s hiding in plain sight.”
Ketterer teamed up with the group Nuclear Watch New Mexico to gather the samples in July, a rainy period that often results in isolated downpours and stormwater runoff coursing through canyons and otherwise dry arroyos. Water was flowing through Acid Canyon when the samples were taken.
BY SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS | August 15, 2024 apnews.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Watchdogs are raising new concerns about legacy contamination in Los Alamos, the birthplace of the atomic bomb and home to a renewed effort to manufacture key components for nuclear weapons.
A Northern Arizona University professor emeritus who analyzed soil, water and vegetation samples taken along a popular hiking and biking trail in Acid Canyon said Thursday that there were more extreme concentrations of plutonium found there than at other publicly accessible sites he has researched in his decades-long career.
That includes land around the federal government’s former weapons plant at Rocky Flats in Colorado.
While outdoor enthusiasts might not be in immediate danger while traveling through the pine tree-lined canyon, Michael Ketterer — who specializes in tracking the chemical fingerprints of radioactive materials — said state and local officials should be warning people to avoid coming in contact with water in Acid Canyon.
A nuclear legacy in Los Alamos
After three cleanups, independent analysis shows 80-year-old plutonium persists in Acid Canyon and beyond
By Alicia Inez Guzmán, Searchlight New Mexico | August 15, 2024 searchlightnm.org
The world’s oldest documented plutonium contamination may not lie not in the Chihuahuan Desert at the Trinity Site, where the first-ever atomic bomb ripped open the skies and melted the sand into green glass. Rather, that distinction more likely goes to Los Alamos’s Acid Canyon, according to an independent study by Michael Ketterer, professor emeritus of chemistry and biochemistry at Northern Arizona University.
Ketterer announced these findings at an online press conference held by Nuclear Watch New Mexico on Aug. 15, after collecting and analyzing soil, water and plant samples in Acid Canyon, a popular hiking area in the middle of town. Beginning in 1943, the year the Manhattan Project came to Los Alamos, workers released radioactive waste into the canyon. Three remediations would follow, but as Ketterer’s analysis found, “a super weapons-grade” plutonium persists in the soil, water and plant life in and around Los Alamos, representing some of the earliest ever made.
One thought came to his mind as he analyzed samples from the area, collected last month:
“I’ve never seen anything like this in any samples anywhere,” he told Searchlight New Mexico in an interview.
How a US health agency became a shield for polluters
Companies and others responsible for some of America’s most toxic waste sites are using a federal health agency’s faulty reports to save money on cleanups, defend against lawsuits and deny victims compensation, a Reuters investigation found. A Missouri neighborhood’s tale.
By JAIMI DOWDELL, M.B. PELL, BENJAMIN LESSER, MICHELLE CONLIN, PHOEBE QUINTON and WAYLON CUNNINGHAM, Reuters | August 11, 2024 reuters.com
When they bought their homes in the Spanish Village neighborhood northwest of St. Louis, many residents had no idea a radioactive landfill sat less than a mile away.
Health conditions mounted over the years, suggesting something wasn’t right.
Wester warns: ‘We are now in a nuclear arms race far more dangerous than the first’
“…There is a frustration that our world leaders are not listening. The tragedy of the 200,000 killed both in Hiroshima and Nagasaki seems to fall on deaf ears.
We are now in a nuclear arms race arguably far more dangerous than the first. We see countries modernizing their nuclear arsenals and spending scads of money in what appears to be (a move toward) ‘nuclear weapons forever.’”
By OSV News | August 6, 2024 catholicreview.org
Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, N.M., has traveled to Japan on a “pilgrimage of peace” commemorating the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The pilgrimage, which the archbishop undertook last year as well, was announced Aug. 3 by the Santa Fe Archdiocese.
The attacks on the two Japanese cities — launched by the U.S. on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, in an effort to force the unconditional surrender of Japan and hasten the end of the war — killed an estimated 110,000 to 210,000 people. The true number of casualties is “probably fundamentally unknowable,” according to nuclear weapons historian Alex Wellerstein.
Continue reading
Hiroshima – The Unknown Images
On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., a bright flash set the sky over Hiroshima ablaze. A gigantic column of smoke rises above the city. The first nuclear bomb in history has just been dropped on the largest metropolis in western Japan.
This 2015 documentary shows this tragedy from the inside using photos taken that day.
Nuclear disarmament seemed possible. The imagined destruction of a Kansas town helped get us there.
“While part of the rationale for modernizing the American arsenal is safety — some of the warheads in the stockpile are 50 years old — the other part is deterrence. Despite the end of the Cold War, the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction continues. We find ourselves in a new arms race, one that aims to keep existing stockpiles stable but make new weapons out of them that are more reliable and precise, and hence deadlier.”
By Max McCoy, Kansas Reflector | August 4, 2024 kansasreflector.com
From miles above the midwestern prairies, I got a first-hand look at the machinery of doomsday.
Lying on my stomach in a pod beneath the tail of a KC-135 Stratotanker I watched as the operator next to me guided the flying boom behind us toward an aircraft keeping pace just below. This was a midair refueling mission, and the boom would top off the tanks of the receiving aircraft. That plane, with its white upper fuselage and black nose, was an EC-135 airborne command post, code named “Looking Glass.”
I’ve been thinking about that flight lately as the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki again approach. On Tuesday, it will be 79 years since the U.S. destroyed Hiroshima with an atomic bomb, followed three days later by the bombing of Nagasaki. More than 200,000 people were killed, mostly civilians. The bombings hastened the end of World War II but heralded the passing of our technological innocence — we finally had the power to annihilate ourselves as a species.
Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons: Archbishop John C. Wester to Honor the 79th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
ALBUQUERQUE, NM – Saturday, August 3, 2024 – IMMEDIATE RELEASE—Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons: Most Rev. John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, are set to embark on a pilgrimage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings. This visit underscores the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s unwavering commitment to advocating for universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament.
During this multi-day journey, they will engage with Japanese and Korean bishops, fostering dialogue and solidarity in the shared mission to eliminate nuclear weapons globally. This pilgrimage is a testament to the enduring spirit of peace and reconciliation and a call to action for renewed and serious conversations about disarmament in New Mexico and around the world.
“Standing in the very places where the catastrophic consequences of nuclear warfare were first realized compels us to rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of a world free from nuclear weapons,” said Archbishop Wester. “This pilgrimage is not only a gesture of remembrance but also a commitment to continue our work toward global peace and security.”
He emphasized the critical need for sustained advocacy. “The lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are more relevant than ever. As we honor the victims and survivors of these tragedies, we must also challenge the status quo and push for real progress in nuclear disarmament.”
The visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki will include participation in memorial ceremonies, meetings with survivors (hibakusha), and discussions with key religious and civic leaders. These activities will serve as a powerful reminder of the moral and ethical imperatives to dismantle nuclear arsenals and prevent future nuclear catastrophes.
Nuclear News Archive – 2022
Nuclear talks with US to resume ‘soon,’ Iranian foreign minister says
The US left the JCPOA in 2018, citing continued malign behavior by Iran in the region, and implementing a “maximum pressure” sanctions regime, but Biden seeks a return to the policy.
“Until Iran returns to the negotiating table, the other parties must also make new decisions and show their will and intention for the success of the talks and fulfilling their commitments,” he added.
Ex-CEO who oversaw doomed nuclear project sentenced
An executive who lied to regulators about two South Carolina nuclear plants that never generated a watt of power has been sentenced to two years in prison
By abcnews.go.com October 7, 2021
FILE – In a Sept. 21, 2016 file photo, Kevin Marsh, CEO of SCANA Corp., speaks to the media at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station near Jenkinsville, S.C. Marsh and prosecutors have agreed to ask for a two-year prison sentence on federal and state charges he lied about the progress of two nuclear plants that were never finished. A judge will sentence Marsh Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File)
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A utility executive who repeatedly lied to keep investors pumping money into South Carolina’s $9 billion nuclear reactor debacle will spend two years in prison for fraud, a federal judge decided on Thursday.
Former SCANA Corp. CEO Kevin Marsh agreed with prosecutors that he should serve the sentence and the judge approved the deal, making him the first executive put behind bars for misleading the public on the project, which failed without ever generating a watt of power.
Biden administration reveals number of nuclear weapons in US stockpile
“The Biden administration’s decision to declassify updated information on the number of nuclear warheads in the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal is a welcome step that reverses an unwise decision by the Trump administration to classify this information,” the Arms Control Association said in a statement Wednesday.
“It also puts pressure on other nuclear armed states that maintain excessive secrecy about their arsenals.”
By Chandelis Duster and Nicole Gaouette, CNN, benningtonbanner.com October 7, 2021
(CNN) In a reversal from the Trump administration, the State Department revealed the number of nuclear weapons in the US stockpile for the first time in four years on Tuesday.
“Increasing the transparency of states’ nuclear stockpiles is important to nonproliferation and disarmament efforts, including commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and efforts to address all types of nuclear weapons, including deployed and non-deployed, and strategic and non-strategic,” the State Department said.
Nuclear submarines will not deter China from conflict with Taiwan, but Australia has an alternative arsenal
As a committed supporter of international institutions and the world’s 13th largest economy, Australia has real clout
“As the gap between China’s military and Australia’s widens, it is unlikely that Australia’s capability – even with a fleet of nuclear submarines, supplied by its Aukus partners – will determine the balance of military power in the Indo-Pacific.”
By Jonathan Pearlman October 6, 2021 The Guardian theguardian.com
For an emerging superpower prone to petulant outbursts and coercive retaliation, China’s initial response to the recent announcement of the new three-way security pact between Australia, the United States and Britain seemed surprisingly tepid.
Hours after the trio unveiled their “forever partnership”, known as Aukus, China formally requested that it be allowed to join an 11-member Asia-Pacific trade grouping, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
This was an odd move by China, whose application requires the consent of the grouping’s members, which include Australia. In recent years, China has responded to previous perceived slights from Canberra by imposing economic sanctions worth $20bn and freezing ministerial contacts.
Nuclear-Weapon-Free States Demand Immediate End to Deterrence Policies, Start of Dismantling Atomic Arsenals, as First Committee Continues General Debate
Calling for swift remedies to mend a fractured non-proliferation landscape, nuclear-weapon-free States demanded an immediate end to deterrence policies and the start of dismantling atomic arsenals, as the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) moved into the third day of its general debate.
UNITED NATIONS MEETINGS COVERAGE GENERAL ASSEMBLY FIRST COMMITTEE SEVENTY-SIXTH SESSION, 4TH MEETING (PM)
As thousands of atomic bombs located around the world pose grave risks to humanity, delegates implored nuclear-weapon States to steer the planet onto a path of peace. Some suggested such ways to do so, with delegates agreeing that dismantling nuclear arsenals must start now, in line with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and under safeguards established by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Many urged all nations with atomic arsenals to sign, ratify and fully implement existing conventions, including the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force in January, and some decried the quarter of a century delay in entering into force the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. To rectify this, many called for nuclear-weapon States to sign and ratify it so that atomic bomb testing can become part of the past.
One Man Shouldn’t Control the Nuclear Button
Congress should require consultation, so generals wouldn’t have to break the rules to save the world.
The critics are missing the point. The overriding issue is not whether Gen. Milley was correct in his assessment, or whether he was authorized to take the reported actions, but what the consequences could have been if his concern had been warranted. It is not hyperbole to say that the consequences could have been a profound tragedy and, in the worst case, the end of civilization.
The Stealthy F-35 Fighter Jet Is One Step Closer to Carrying Nuclear Weapons
“A pair of F-35s from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada released dummy nuclear bombs at a nearby test range this month, moving the advanced stealth fighter closer to carrying the world’s most powerful weapons into combat, the Air Force said.”
The flights on Sept. 21 marked the “graduation” test exercise necessary for the Air Force variant of the F-35 to move ahead with what’s called the nuclear design certification process, according to the service’s press release.
It’s still not clear when the F-35A will receive its full nuclear certification allowing it to move from training ranges and dummy bombs to real-world battlefields. But when that happens, the Air Force will have a second stealth aircraft in its fleet that can carry nukes.
“The B-2 [Spirit] bomber was the prominent nuclear-capable stealth aircraft,” Lt. Col. Daniel Jackson, division chief for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration at Air Combat Command, said in the press release.
F-15E Strike Eagle and F-16C and D Fighting Falcon fighters do not have stealth capability but can carry nuclear weapons. The B-21 Raider heavy bomber will also have the capability and is expected to join the Air Force’s fleet in the mid-2020s, according to the latest estimates.
Opinion: Too many ‘downwinders’ are still suffering
“We are sponsoring a bill that would make sure the government’s responsibility to those who were harmed by nuclear testing does not get swept under the rug.”
By deseret.com
Any objective study of American history brings us to the realization that there are many Americans who quietly made, and continue to make, great sacrifices for our national security. Many of these women and men willingly give of themselves to ensure that our country remains free.
Tragically, under the banner of national security the United States government exposed Americans to radioactive uranium ore and radioactive dust — subjecting them to lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses.
On July 16, we marked the 76th anniversary of the detonation of the first nuclear weapon — code-named Trinity — in the desert of New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin. Three weeks after the Trinity detonation, the United States exploded the Little Boy bomb over Hiroshima and, three days later, the Fat Man bomb over Nagasaki. Six days later, Japan surrendered. In the aftermath of World War II, a nuclear arms race began that reached its zenith with over 60,000 nuclear weapons worldwide in 1986.
Many lives were lost or severely altered by the nuclear weapons program. Thankfully, the world stockpile of nuclear weapons has steadily declined since 1986 and will, hopefully, continue to do so in the future. Yet, the effects of detonating over 1,100 nuclear weapons since the Trinity test in 1945 continue to mar the lives of Americans to this day.
Through atmospheric weapons tests, as well as mining, transporting and milling of uranium ore, many Americans have been slowly killed by radiation exposure. Thousands of Utahns were infected by radiation exposure simply by living “downwind” of the federal government’s nuclear weapons testing sites. Additional Utahn miners were affected as they worked the uranium necessary for these weapons. These “downwinders” and miners and their families friends, and communities often suffered excruciating illness, loss and devastation.
In response to this malfeasance, Congress rightly enacted (and later amended in 2000) the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) in 1990. This legislation was a good first step in making recompense to those who mined and hauled uranium ore and those who processed the ore at a mill. The RECA legislation also addresses those exposed to radiation downwind from nuclear test sites.
It has been more than 20 years since any meaningful reform to RECA has been made for those whose lives have been taken or irreversibly altered by our foray into the arms race. Several classifications of workers such as core drillers and ground workers have been denied justice by being excluded completely from the process.
Some diseases that should have been compensable have been excluded. Numerous geographical locations exposed to downwind radiation have been left out. Uranium miners continued to mine after the United States stopped buying uranium for its nuclear weapons programs in 1971. These so-called post-1971 workers were excluded from accessing benefits since the original RECA legislation had an arbitrary cutoff date of Dec. 31, 1971 — even though the federal government continued to regulate uranium mines long after 1971. To make matters worse, RECA is scheduled to sunset in July 2022 — potentially leaving all classifications of exposure victims without redress.
We are honored to represent some of these “downwinders” and their family members and want them to know their suffering — and the sacrifices they made for our nation — are not forgotten.
That is why we are pleased to be the lead Republican members of the House of Representatives on the “RECA Amendments Act of 2021,” legislation that will reauthorize RECA for those still suffering the consequences of nuclear testing.
The tragic consequences of the nuclear arms race cannot be swept under the rug of history. We urge our colleagues in Congress to support the “RECA Amendments Act of 2021.” Our country must act now to address the injustices of those who have been forgotten by their own government.
Rep. Burgess Owens represents Utah’s 4th Congressional District. Rep. Chris Stewart represents Utah’s 2nd Congressional District.
Four Takeaways from the 2021 World Nuclear Industry Status Report
“Although net nuclear capacity rose last year, the 0.4-gigawatt increase was minuscule in comparison with the gains made by renewable energy. ‘Nuclear is irrelevant in today’s electricity capacity newbuild market,’ the industry report concludes.”
By Dawn Stover | October 1, 2021 The Bulletin thebulletin.org
Although there are 23 fewer nuclear reactors in the world today than at the 2002 peak of 438, the past year saw a small uptick in the number of reactors operating worldwide and a corresponding increase in the global fleet’s net operating capacity.
That’s one data point in the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2021, the latest in a series of annual industry reports compiled by an international team of independent experts led by Mycle Schneider, a consultant based in Paris. The 409-page report, released this week, is packed with information about global and country-specific trends, but several findings stand out, and they don’t bode well for the nuclear energy industry.
First, although nuclear capacity is up, nuclear electricity production is down.
As of mid-2021, there were 415 nuclear reactors operating in 33 countries, seven reactors more than a year earlier. Their total capacity was 1.9 percent higher than a year earlier. But in 2020, the worldwide nuclear fleet generated 3.9 percent less electricity than in the previous year. That was the first decrease in output since 2012, when many reactors remained shut down in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Without China, where most of the new construction is happening, the decrease in production would look even bigger. In 2020, China for the first time produced more nuclear electricity than France, which relies heavily on nuclear energy. Only the United States produced more.
NRDC: Legislation Offers Path Forward on Nuclear Waste
“This legislation could end years of debate and acrimony and help determine a path forward for disposing of nuclear waste. Placing nuclear waste under bedrock environmental laws could ensure strong repository standards, while giving states the power to approve what is sequestered within their borders.”
– Kit Kennedy, managing director for the Climate and Clean Energy program at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)
WASHINGTON – Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) introduced legislation today that could end a 60-year impasse over our nation’s nuclear waste.
The bill would establish a task force to consider removing exemptions for radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel from our bedrock environmental laws. Doing so would allow for geologic repositories for nuclear waste that have strong environmental protections and the consent of state leaders and local residents.
Senator Markey and Rep Levin Introduce Legislation to Determine a Viable Consent Based Path Forward for Nuclear Waste
Currently, the United States has no permanent geologic repository for disposal of high-level nuclear waste
“The current system of spent nuclear fuel storage is not sustainable, particularly for sites that no longer have operating reactors and could be redeveloped for other beneficial uses, such as the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station,” said Representative Levin.
PRESS RELEASE September 28, 2021 markey.senate.gov
Washington (September 28, 2021) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chair of the Clean Air, Climate, and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Congressman Mike Levin (CA-49) today introduced the Nuclear Waste Task Force Act, legislation to establish a new task force to consider the implications of amending the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to remove exemptions from environmental laws for nuclear waste. Eliminating this loophole could help enable consent-based siting of long-term storage solutions for nuclear waste. The task force would also be responsible for providing a clear explanation of what constitutes “consent-based siting.”
“Enabling consent-based storage is the key to developing real, practical solutions for the long-term storage of nuclear waste. This nuclear waste task force will play a critical role in determining how to make that happen.”
Survivors Of The Trinity Nuclear Test Weren’t Warned — Then Were Lied To After
NPR’s Leila Fadel talks with Lesley Blume about the struggle of the survivors of the Trinity nuclear test in 1945 — one locals didn’t know was coming and caused serious health issues.
“The compensation act – RECA as it’s called – is about to expire next July…What’s happening right now is that several members of Congress from New Mexico and from other Western states are trying to extend RECA, and they’re making a bid to have the Trinity downwinders included under this legislation at last, among other exposed communities.”
Heard on All Things Considered
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
This was most of America’s introduction to nuclear power.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HARRY TRUMAN: A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy.
FADEL: President Harry Truman’s announcement in August of 1945 heralded a terrifying new weapon.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMAN: It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.
FADEL: But the Atomic Age actually began the month before At the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico. The first nuclear test, codenamed Trinity, was a closely guarded secret. Locals, some as close as 12 miles away, had no idea it was coming. Lesley Blume wrote about them for National Geographic.
Welcome back.
LESLEY BLUME: Thank you so much.
FADEL: So, first, tell us what happened during that first test, codenamed Trinity.
BLUME: It was a huge success, but it also – the bomb was a lot more powerful than they had expected, three to five times as powerful. And, you know, initially they thought that the cloud was only going to go up about 12,000 or 13,000 feet. Well, guess what. It went up between 50,000 and 70,000 feet. It created sort of an estimated fallout zone about 100 miles long and 30 miles wide…
“Now is the time to eliminate nuclear weapons from our world, and usher in a new era of dialogue, trust and peace”, declared UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday, marking the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
Addressing the threat of nuclear weapons, said Mr, Guterres, has been central to the work of the United Nations since its inception; the first General Assembly resolution in 1946 sought “the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.”
The UN chief pointed out that, although the total number of nuclear weapons has been decreasing for decades, some 14,000 are stockpiled around the world, which is facing the highest level of nuclear risk in almost four decades: “States are qualitatively improving their arsenals, and we are seeing worrying signs of a new arms race.” Humanity, continued the UN chief, remains unacceptably close to nuclear annihilation.
Veterans Group Urges President Biden to Adopt No First Use Policy
To mark the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, September 26, Veterans For Peace is publishing an Open Letter to President Biden: Just Say NO to Nuclear War!
ST. LOUIS, MO –
Veterans For Peace, with over 140 chapters in the United States and affiliates abroad, is calling on President Biden to step back from the brink of nuclear war by declaring and implementing a policy of No First Use and by taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert. The full letter will be published on the VFP website and offered to mainstream newspapers and alternative news sites: Click here to view.
While timed to coincide with the UN-declared International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, a major motivation for the letter is the Nuclear Posture Review, currently underway.
The letter therefore states, “As veterans who have fought in multiple U.S. wars, we are concerned about the very real danger of a nuclear war that would kill millions of people and could possibly even destroy human civilization. Therefore we are asking to have input into the Nuclear Posture Review that your administration has recently initiated.”
A Little Radiation Is Not Good For You
“…between 1977 and 1990, scientists tripled their estimate of the damage inflicted by a given dose of radiation. A 1992 study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine found that nuclear weapons production workers exposed to small doses were four to eight times more likely to contract cancer than previously estimated…even the very lowest background levels of radiation exposure are harmful to health and have statistically significant negative effects on DNA.”
In a rare pushback against the radioactive pollution industry, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — well known as a rubber stamp for the nuclear lobby — has flatly rejected an attempt to further weaken the agency’s radiation exposure regulations.
After six years of deliberation, the NRC’s three commissioners, two Democrats and one Republican, voted unanimously to reject formal petitions submitted in February 2015 urging the agency to adopt a cost-cutting scheme known as “hormesis” which claims that “a little radiation is good for you.” The September 16 decision by the NRC says this “threshold theory posits that “there is some threshold dose below which there is either no radiation-related health detriment or a radiation-related health benefit that outweighs any detriment.”
The order then rebukes this concept, finding the petitioners “fail to present an adequate basis supporting the request,” and “Convincing evidence has not yet demonstrated the existence of a threshold below which there would be no … effects from exposure to low radiation doses.”
The basis for hormesis had been explicitly rejected ten years earlier, the NRC pointed out, by the National Academy of Sciences in its 2005 report “Biologic Effects of Ionizing Radiation, 7th Ed” or BEIR-VII. The National Research Council summed up its book-length BEIR-7 report saying, “the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.”
Biden’s nuclear agenda in trouble as Pentagon hawks attack
“The decision to fire Leonor suggests to me that the first draft of NPR is going to be a continuation of the line of thinking we saw in the Trump administration’s NPR…They have put themselves on the course that is a first draft that is 180 degrees to what Biden said on the campaign trail.” – Jeffrey Lewis, a professor and nuclear weapons expert at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies and host of the podcast Arms Control Wonk.
By BRYAN BENDER and LARA SELIGMAN | September 23, 2021 politico.com
One of President Joe Biden’s leading allies in his decadeslong attempt to reduce nuclear weapons has lost a battle with the Pentagon’s hawks.
The ouster of Leonor Tomero, who questioned the status quo on nuclear weapons, signals the Biden administration’s ambitious agenda to overhaul America’s nuclear policy might be in trouble.
Early in his administration, Biden installed national security officials intent on negotiating new arms control treaties and curtailing nuclear weapons spending. One of them was Tomero, a leading voice for nuclear restraint on Capitol Hill and in the think tank community, who was appointed to oversee the Nuclear Posture Review that will set the administration’s atomic weapons policy and strategy.
But officials with more traditional views on nuclear weapons, who promote a status quo agenda to include modernizing the land, sea and airborne legs of America’s nuclear arsenal, did not take kindly to Tomero’s progressive ideology, according to 11 current and former defense officials, as well as others with insight into the debate.
New push on to expand nuclear radiation compensation in US
“There is always money when there’s political will. This is a social, environmental and restorative justice issue that we, as a nation, can no longer look away from.” — Tina Cordova, a cancer survivor and co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A bipartisan group of lawmakers is renewing a push to expand a U.S. compensation program for people who were exposed to radiation following uranium mining and nuclear testing carried out during the Cold War.
Advocates have been trying for years to bring awareness to the lingering effects of nuclear fallout surrounding the Trinity Site in southern New Mexico, where the U.S. military detonated the first atomic bomb, and on the Navajo Nation, where more than 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activities.
Under legislation introduced Wednesday by U.S. Sens. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat from New Mexico, and Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, other sites across the American West would be added to the list of places affected by fallout and radiation exposure. Eligibility also would be expanded to include certain workers in the industry after 1971, such as miners.
The legislation also would increase the amount of compensation someone can receive to $150,000 and provide coverage for additional forms of cancer.
Op-Ed: Gen. Milley did the wrong thing for honorable reasons. We need new rules for starting nuclear war
“But let’s be clear about where the problem lies: It’s with the existing U.S. system for controlling the use of nuclear weapons… If the United States is intent on maintaining at the ready a large nuclear strike force, as is apparently the case, the nation needs comprehensive safeguards to prevent reckless and ill-considered decisions regarding their use.”
September 16, 2021
A new book by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa contains a singularly startling allegation. In the waning weeks of the Trump administration, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, twice called his counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng, of the People’s Liberation Army, offering assurances that the United States was not about to launch an attack against China.
“If we’re going to attack,” Milley told Li, according to Woodward and Costa, “I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”
The surprise turns out to be the revelation of Milley’s actions. Some in the Defense Department may have known about the calls, but one thing seems clear: President Trump, the U.S. commander in chief, did not. Milley acted of his own volition, without prior presidential approval. On that point, Christopher Miller, then serving as acting Defense secretary, is emphatic, describing Milley’s actions to Fox News as a “disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination.”
Providing adversaries with advance notice of U.S. military actions does not number among the prescribed duties of the chairman of the joint chiefs. Arguably, the Woodward-Costa allegations, if accurately reported, qualify as treasonous. At the very least, they raise serious doubts about Milley’s respect for the bedrock principle of civilian control of the military. To state the matter bluntly, when adherence to that principle raised the possibility of an outcome not to Milley’s liking, he seemingly granted himself an exemption.
Of course, all of this happened in a specific context: Woodward and Costa’s chilling account is only the latest to depict the unraveling Trump presidency following the November election. Unwilling to accept defeat, the incumbent all but ceased to govern and instead devoted himself to overturning the election’s results by any means necessary, violating the rule of law and waiving the Constitution.
Kildee Introduces Bipartisan Resolution Opposing Proposed Canadian Permanent Nuclear Storage Site Near Great Lakes
By Devlin Barrett and Martin Weil | September 16, 2021 Press Release dankildee.house.gov
Woodward/Costa book: Worried Trump could ‘go rogue,’ Milley took secret action to protect nuclear weapons
“Woodward and Costa write that after January 6, Milley ‘felt no absolute certainty that the military could control or trust Trump and believed it was his job as the senior military officer to think the unthinkable and take any and all necessary precautions.’
Milley called it the ‘absolute darkest moment of theoretical possibility,‘ the authors write.”
September 14, 2021
Washington (CNN) Two days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, President Donald Trump’s top military adviser, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, single-handedly took secret action to limit Trump from potentially ordering a dangerous military strike or launching nuclear weapons, according to “Peril,” a new book by legendary journalist Bob Woodward and veteran Washington Post reporter Robert Costa.
Woodward and Costa write that Milley, deeply shaken by the assault, ‘was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.’
“You never know what a president’s trigger point is,” Milley told his senior staff, according to the book.
A private company got federal approval to store nuclear waste in Texas. The state is fighting back.
“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval of the planned facility opens a new front in a decades-long battle to find a home for the country’s nuclear waste.”
By: Douglas MacMillan and Aaron Gregg | THE WASHINGTON POST September 12, 2021 washingtonpost.com
A private company has won federal approval to build an expansive nuclear waste site in Texas, even as residents, state lawmakers, environmentalists and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) rail against it.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Monday issued a license for Andrews, Tex.-based Interim Storage Partners to store as much as 5,000 metric tons of radioactive waste. It’s one of two proposed storage sites — the other is in southeastern New Mexico — that has been under agency review for several years.
Nuclear waste facility near Carlsbad sees COVID-19 surge as infections rise in New Mexico
COVID-19 infections resurged at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in recent weeks as cases of the virus climbed in the communities surrounding the nuclear waste repository in southeast New Mexico.
There were 14 positive cases among workers at the site or associated with the facility reported between Aug. 17 and 31, per the latest report from Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) – WIPP’s primary operations contractor.
In total, WIPP reported as of Aug. 31, there were 25 active cases.
WIPP officials did not report the identities of patients or companies where the infected workers were employed.
All employees at WIPP were encouraged to receive a COVID-19 vaccination, per an NWP news release, and required to wear protective face masks when indoors, vaccinated or not, and social distance when possible.
U.S. still prepared to engage with North Korea after missile test
“North Korea’s cruise missiles usually generate less interest than ballistic missiles because they are not explicitly banned under United Nations Security Council resolutions. However, analysts said calling it “strategic” could mean it was a nuclear-capable system.”
Reuters reuters.com September 13, 2021
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE, Sept 13 (Reuters) – The United States remains prepared to engage with North Korea, a White House spokeswoman said on Monday, despite Pyongyang’s announcement that it had tested a new long-range cruise missile over the weekend.
“Our position has not changed when it comes to North Korea, we remain prepared to engage,” principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
North Korea’s state media announced on Monday what it said were successful tests of a new long-range cruise missile that analysts said could be the country’s first such weapon with a nuclear capability. read more
U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said initial indications were that North Korea had carried out such a test.
Biden blasted for ‘wishful thinking’ as new ‘potential nuclear crisis’ looms
“Iran deserves a measure of the blame for resurrecting a matter that diplomats spent more than a dozen years putting to rest…It is the US that is overwhelmingly responsible for the current crisis.”
The US President promised throughout the 2020 election campaign he would restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, which Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018. However, his administration are reportedly getting “closer” to giving up on the deal.
Since Mr Biden took office on January 20, Iran elected hardline judge Ebrahim Raisi as their new President.
While talks have been held between Washington and Tehran on renewing the JCPOA, no new agreement has been struck.
Borzou Daragahi, senior non-resident fellow at Washington think tank the Atlantic Council, said Mr Biden’s administration “still needs to figure out what it wants in Iran”.
Why China’s attack on Nato ‘double standards’ suggests it will continue to build up nuclear arsenal
“The alliance’s head Jens Stoltenberg accused Beijing of increasing its firepower ‘without constraint’ and urged it to sign up to international arms controls – But Beijing hit back by criticising Nato’s nuclear sharing arrangements and said the US and Russia should lead the way by disarming”
scmp.com September 12, 2021
China is expected to continue building up its arsenal of nuclear weapons despite Nato’s appeal for it to sign up to international arms controls. Last week Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg criticised China’s efforts to develop its nuclear capacity – by building more warheads, delivery systems and silos – “without any limitation or constraint”.
He told Nato’s annual arms control conference in Brussels that this was making the world “more unpredictable, more competitive and more dangerous”.
Jay Coghlan on the Richard Eeds Show – September 12, 2021
Jay Coghlan, Director @ Nuclear Watch New Mexico, on public hearings and the comment period on the expansion of the “Pit” building program at LANL.
20 years after 9/11, Yankee’s nuclear fuel still poses security risk
“Deb Katz, the executive director of Citizens Awareness Network, a New England-wide anti-nuclear group, said her group supports ambitious improvements to the storage facilities.
“We support hardening the waste on site. This includes double walling the casks, increasing the distance between the casks, if possible, berming them in to protect them from acts of malice,” she said.
“The waste must stay on site until there is a scientifically sound and environmentally just solution,” she said, referring to a nuclear industry move toward building interim nuclear waste storage facilities. One is proposed for west Texas, the other in New Mexico.”
By Susan Smallheer, Brattleboro Reformer benningtonbanner.com September 11, 2021
VERNON — The Vermont Department of Health is still planning for the worst at the Vermont Yankee site in Vernon.
But the worst, thanks to the active decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee site currently underway, is not as bad as it could have been six years ago, when Vermont Yankee shut down and its nuclear fuel was moved out of the reactor core and put into storage in giant steel and concrete casks.
“The Health Department’s Radiological and Nuclear Emergency Response Plan originally had a heavy emphasis on releases from Vermont Yankee, which could impact large areas and populations while it operated. Even with the shutdown of Vermont Yankee, we continue to maintain many of our resources for radiological emergency response,” said William Irwin, the state’s radiological health chief.
Texas bans storage of highly radioactive waste, but a West Texas facility may get a license from the feds anyway
Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday night signed a bill into law that attempts to block a plan to store highly radioactive nuclear waste at a site in West Texas.
House Bill 7 effectively bans highly radioactive materials from coming to Texas, targeting one company’s plan to build such a facility near the New Mexico border in Andrews County.
But, the new state law may soon be in conflict with federal regulators. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is advancing the company’s application for a license to allow the high-level nuclear waste to Texas, and a decision from the federal agency could come as early as Monday, a spokesperson with the commission said.
For years, environmental and consumer advocates have protested a proposal by a West Texas company, Waste Control Specialists, to build with a partner an interim storage site for high-level nuclear waste, which is mostly spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants. Waste Control Specialists has been disposing of the nation’s low-level nuclear waste, including tools, building materials and protective clothing exposed to radioactivity, for a decade in Andrews County.
Continue reading
Lawmakers set for battle over next-gen nuclear missile
“For the W87-1, whose plutonium cores, or pits, are to be produced in part by the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility in South Carolina, at stake are jobs and billions of federal dollars to upgrade buildings or construct new factories. It’s all intertwined with shaky plans launched by the Trump administration to have Savannah River and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico produce a combined 80 pits per year by 2030.”
defensenews.com September 9, 2021
WASHINGTON ― Nuclear modernization opponents and defenders are gearing up to fight again over the next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile and other efforts.
Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., and a skeptic of nuclear spending on the House Armed Services Committee, confirmed he plans to offer nuclear-themed amendments when the annual defense bill receives House floor consideration later this month. One aims to pause the Air Force’s nascent Ground Based Strategic Deterrent in favor of maintaining the missile it would replace, the Minuteman III; another would zero out funds for the GBSD’s warhead, the W87-1.
“The bottom line is that we could pause the entire GBSD program and push forward into the future a $100 billion expense,” Garamendi, who chairs the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee, told Defense News.
With the Biden administration’s Nuclear Posture Review due early next year, Garamendi said the amendments are part of his “strategy to raise the issues, to gather the data, test the arguments against the opposition … and create an occasional success.”
More nuclear waste may be heading to WIPP on US 285
[WIPP is the world’s only operating underground nuclear waste dump. It is limited to nuclear weapons waste, but the federal government is trying to expand WIPP and break its promises and social contract with New Mexicans.
Help Us STOP FOREVER WIPP-Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The nuclear waste dump is permitted to operate until 2024, but the Federal government wants to expand the amount and types of waste allowed with NO end date.
We need your help to protect New Mexico!]
“At a recent Santa Fe County Town Hall, activist Cindy Weehler of 285 ALL said the U.S. Department of Energy made it clear that it’s going to expand its nuclear waste program, she said. She said she’s concerned about the new type of radioactive waste that would be traveling through the county, which would be diluted plutonium, instead of contaminated items.”
Copyright © 2021 Albuquerque Journal
Spanning the length of the state, U.S. Highway 285 is a major thoroughfare for truck transports and other traffic. This busy highway, nicknamed “Death Highway” due to the number of fatal accidents on it, may get busier.
Concerned citizens in Santa Fe County recently called out the U.S. Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for expanding its mission in a permit renewal application to include more nuclear waste being shipped along the 285 corridor.
Part of Highway 285 goes along the southern edge of the city of Santa Fe, and local activists are calling on local and federal leaders to halt this increase in nuclear waste transportation.
The permit application is requesting to add two nuclear waste storage panels to WIPP that would increase the waste volume in these areas.
Montco offering potassium iodide tablets in the event of a nuclear emergency
Radioactive iodine, a contaminant that could be released in the event of a nuclear accident, can increase the risk of thyroid cancer. Potassium iodide (KI) can help protect the thyroid gland against radioactive iodine.
If you live, work, or attend school within a 10-mile radius of the Limerick nuclear power plant, local health officials have a freebie for you — albeit not a sexy one.
Montgomery County’s Office of Public Health will be handing out potassium iodide tablets to those in close proximity to the Limerick Generating Station.
The distribution is part of a statewide emergency preparedness effort — the Limerick site is one of Pennsylvania’s four active nuclear power plants.
General Assembly President calls for halt to nuclear tests
The President of the UN General Assembly, Volkan Bozkir, on Wednesday called for an end to nuclear tests, as ambassadors gathered to commemorate the International Day against Nuclear Tests, observed annually on 29 August.
news.un.org September 8, 2021
Despite recent developments in advancing nuclear disarmament, more remains to be done, said Mr. Bozkir, urging countries which have yet to sign or ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) to do so without delay.
“More than 2,000 nuclear tests have been conducted since the advent of nuclear weapons. While the rate of testing has declined, they have not stopped,” he said.
“These tests have long lasting health and environmental consequences. They devastate the communities they impact. They displace families from their homelands.”
Progress on disarmament
Underlining the General Assembly’s commitment to nuclear disarmament, Mr. Bozkir welcomed progress achieved over the past year amid the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
US attorney details illegal acts in construction projects, sealing the fate of the “nuclear renaissance”
“The indictment reveals important new information about how Benjamin and Westinghouse conspired to hide crucial information about reactor completion dates from the owners…It states that the defendant made “false and misleading statements” and “knowingly devised a scheme” to continue the project based on misrepresentations.”
By Tom Clements | thebulletin.org
The ill-fated construction of new nuclear reactors in South Carolina—one of two such troubled Westinghouse reactor construction projects in the United States—was abruptly terminated on July 31, 2017, but the effort to determine legal accountability for the project’s colossal failure is only now hitting its stride.
The South Carolina legislature conducted hearings about the project’s collapse. But it has fallen to the United States Attorney for South Carolina to outline internal decisions that led to project abandonment—via court filings, plea agreements, and indictments. These filings are proving to be the best documentation so far of criminal behavior related to projects that were part of a much-hyped “nuclear renaissance” that began in the early-2000s but has since petered out in the United States.
On August 18, 2021, a second Westinghouse official was charged in a federal grand jury indictment filed with the court in Columbia, South Carolina. The charges outline “the scheme” to cover up key details about the problem-plagued project to construct two 1,100 megawatt (MW) Westinghouse AP1000 light-water reactors at the VC Summer site north of Columbia.
The project was initiated in May 2008 and gained final approval in February 2009.
According to the 18-page indictment, former Senior Vice President of New Plants and Major Projects Jeffrey Benjamin “had first-line responsibility for Westinghouse’s nuclear reactors worldwide.” He was charged, according to a news release, “with sixteen felony counts including conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud, and causing a publicly-traded company to keep a false record.” On August 30, the US attorney’s office announced that Benjamin would be arraigned on August 31.
In order for SCANA, parent of utility South Carolina Electric and Gas, to gain a federal production tax credit of $1.4 billion, essential to the financial viability of the project, both units had to be finished by December 31, 2020.
Benjamin and Westinghouse knew that the dates would never be met, but SCANA doggedly stuck with them given production-tax-credit pressure.The indictment reveals important new information about how Benjamin and Westinghouse conspired to hide crucial information about reactor completion dates from the owners, the publicly held utility SCANA, now defunct, and its junior partner, the state-owned South Carolina Public Service Authority (known as Santee Cooper). It states that the defendant made “false and misleading statements” and “knowingly devised a scheme” to continue the project based on misrepresentations via Westinghouse to the owners, state regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission, investors, and ratepayers. Nervous SCANA officials played along with the inept cover-up efforts and passed on false and inaccurate information to regulators.
Benjamin, the fourth official to be charged, faces 20 years in prison and a $5 million fine. Issuance of the indictment suggests he intends to face trial rather than plead guilty—a risky proposition given the waste of $9 billion on construction of a project that delivered nothing to consumers (and potential jury members) but a series of nine rate hikes. While those hikes were eventually eliminated and further rate hikes were avoided, a small nuclear construction charge in current bills stands as an enduring reminder of the debacle.
On May 21, 2021, Carl Churchman, Westinghouse Electric Corporation vice president and project director, was indicted on the felony charge of making false statements to the FBI about the status of the project. He pleaded guilty on June 10.
In February, Kevin Marsh, former SCANA CEO, also entered a guilty plea in federal court for conspiracy to commit felony fraud. And Stephen Byrne, former SCANA chief operating officer and executive vice president, pleaded guilty in July 2020 to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Both gave false testimony numerous times to regulators.
The August 18, 2021 news release from the South Carolina US Attorney’s Office made clear that the investigation continues: “`This indictment with its attendant allegations and charges is another step toward justice for all those responsible for the VC Summer nuclear plant fiasco,’ said FBI Special Agent in Charge Susan Ferensic.”The two SCANA officials and Westinghouse’s Churchman are subject to five-year prison sentences and stiff fines but will likely face reduced sentences in exchange for fully cooperating with investigators, something required in their plea agreements.
Both Westinghouse and SCANA were eventually forced into bankruptcy. Westinghouse was acquired by Brookfield Business Partners, and SCANA vanished after an easy takeover by Dominion Energy, approved in December 2018. The fate of the debt-strapped, state-owned partner Santee Cooper rages on in the South Carolina Legislature.
One entity that will likely never be held responsible for the disastrous project that it authorized is the South Carolina Public Service Commission. Members of this body unanimously voted in favor of anything SCANA requested during the entire course of the project and balked at providing oversight as it fell apart. All were replaced by the Legislature at the end of their terms with new members, who have been less accommodating to utility requests.
Public interest intervenors were prescient in their early assessments of the project. Friends of the Earth, which intervened before the Public Service Commission against the project in August 2008, noted SCANA’s disregard for energy efficiency and alternative forms of energy. That organization predicted that the project’s fate would be what the US Attorney’s Office affirmed in the August 18, 2021 indictment: “from the outset, the Project was characterized by cost overruns and significant delays.” Likewise, toward the end of the project in June 2017, just after Westinghouse declared bankruptcy, Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club filed a formal complaint detailing why the project must be canceled. As money hemorrhaged, the owners made that earth-shaking decision a month later. And the mighty crash still reverberates.
In Georgia, construction of the other AP1000 project, located at Plant Vogtle, stumbles along to massive cost overruns and significant schedule delays. A main difference between the projects: Georgia Power has a large enough customer base to absorb the financial blow of its struggling project. With cost projections for the two Vogtle units nearing a stunning $30 billion, finishing dates presented to the Georgia Public Service Commission remain open to question.
The Carolina and Georgia reactor projects went forward under laws related to “construction work in progress” that allowed financing charges to be billed to the ratepayers from the start of construction, long before the reactors were online. Both the South Carolina law, the Baseload Review Act, and Georgia’s Nuclear Energy Financing Act have been repealed.
The fault for the shocking AP1000 misadventure falls squarely on the shoulders of Westinghouse and the involved utilities. They all fell victim to their own reactor-promotion propaganda but lacked the technical and management competence to pull off the projects as envisaged. With pursuit of large light-water reactors in the United States all but dead, the nuclear industry is now endlessly touting an array of “small modular reactors” and a dizzying menu of so-called “advanced reactors,” all of which exist only on paper. It’s unclear if there’s a path forward for this nuclear renaissance redux, and if there is, whether taxpayers will be put on the hook for financing some of it.
Germany Calls on Iran to Resume Nuclear Talks
Informal negotiations stalled after Iran’s new hardline president was elected in June. Tehran has caused an international outcry in recent months over the broadening scope of its nuclear program.
“US President Joe Biden has signaled his eagerness to resume direct talks, but Iranian officials have yet to do the same.”
The German Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said it “vehemently” urged Iran to restart negotiations aimed at reviving a defunct nuclear deal.
“We are ready to do so, but the time window won’t be open indefinitely,” a ministry spokesman said.
The French foreign ministry made a similar statement later on Wednesday.
In 2015, Iran, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, China, plus EU representatives, worked out a deal to place curbs on Iran’s nuclear program. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) sought to prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons by restricting the extent to which it could enrich uranium, install nuclear centrifuges, and stockpile radioactive material. In exchange, the other signatories agreed to drop certain sanctions against Tehran.
‘A combination of failures:’ why 3.6m pounds of nuclear waste is buried on a popular California beach
The San Onofre nuclear power plant shut down years ago – but residents and experts worry what will happen with the waste left behind
More than 2 million visitors flock each year to California’s San Onofre state beach, a dreamy slice of coastline just north of San Diego. The beach is popular with surfers, lies across one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the Unites States and has a 10,000-year-old sacred Native American site nearby. It even landed a shout-out in the Beach Boys’ 1963 classic Surfin’ USA.
But for all the good vibes and stellar sunsets, beneath the surface hides a potential threat: 3.6m lb of nuclear waste from a group of nuclear reactors shut down nearly a decade ago. Decades of political gridlock have left it indefinitely stranded, susceptible to threats including corrosion, earthquakes and sea level rise.
The San Onofre reactors are among dozens across the United States phasing out, but experts say they best represent the uncertain future of nuclear energy.
“It’s a combination of failures, really,” said Gregory Jaczko, who chaired the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the top federal enforcer, between 2009 and 2012, of the situation at San Onofre.
‘Star Wars’ no longer fiction
ABQ at center of research for tomorrow’s weapons
“Albuquerque, New Mexico, is the epicenter of directed energy research in the United States…If the arms race for directed energy indeed takes off, much of the action could take place in Albuquerque.”
BY RYAN BOETEL / JOURNAL STAFF WRITER Copyright © 2021 Albuquerque Journal August 20, 2021 abqjournal.com
Force fields protecting us from drones and missiles.
Guns that shoot lasers instead of firing bullets.
Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots zapping at each other on the battlefield.
A new report by the Air Force Research Laboratory titled Directed Energy Futures 2060 describes the sorts of “directed energy” weapons that may come to exist in the next 40 years. And the expected technology – much of which may be researched and developed in Albuquerque – is like something out of a science fiction movie.
Officials from multiple Department of Defense entities, partners with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other experts came together to write the report, which says the world is at a “tipping point.”
MOX failed. But plutonium pit production is different, argues NNSA exec.
“Even with a potential surge in production at Los Alamos, there remains uncertainty about that capability, especially with their history of outages,” U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson
By Colin Demarest [email protected] postandcourier.com August 21, 2021
We could all learn a lesson on disarmament from Archbishop Hunthausen
“I am grateful for having been invited to speak to you on disarmament because it forces me to a kind of personal disarmament. This is a subject I have thought about and prayed over for many years. I can recall vividly hearing the news of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. I was deeply shocked. I could not then put into words the shock I felt from the news that a city of hundreds of thousands of people had been devastated by a single bomb. Hiroshima challenged my faith as a Christian in a way I am only now beginning to understand. That awful event and its successor at Nagasaki sank into my soul, as they have in fact sunk into the souls of all of us, whether we recognize it or not.”
Those are the opening lines of the “Faith and Disarmament” speech Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen delivered on June 12, 1981. Hunthausen had become active in resistance to the U.S. stockpiling of nuclear weapons and the new Trident submarine-based nuclear weapons system, which included the Bangor Trident submarine base in Puget Sound just 20 miles west of Seattle.
In that 1981 speech, Hunthausen referred to the Trident submarines based there as “the Auschwitz of Puget Sound.” In context, it was both a profound and prophetic statement of fact.
As Hunthausen said, “Trident is the Auschwitz of Puget Sound because of the massive cooperation required in our area — the enormous sinful complicity that is necessary — for the eventual incineration of millions of our brother and sister human beings.”
Stop Nuclear Waste Site Expansion Before it’s Too Late
Many New Mexicans are aware that Waste Isolation Pilot Project in Southern New Mexico is the nation’s sole repository for radioactive weapons waste, but did you know that WIPP has surpassed its authorized capacity and that the federal Department of Energy has given it a new mission: to build a new shaft and more than double its capacity?
The resulting increased amount of radioactive plutonium being transported through the Santa Fe area should worry us all. You might assume that nuclear experts have the storage and transportation situation well in hand, but the Los Alamos National Laboratory and WIPP have dismal safety records.
If the powder form of plutonium being carried by tractor-trailers on N.M. 599, Interstate 25, and U.S. 285 is accidentally released into the air, even minuscule doses are 100 percent carcinogenic, especially to children, and cleanup is virtually impossible. And it is our local jurisdictions that respond first to highway accidents. To better understand the danger, see stopforeverwipp.org.
Fortunately there is something citizens can to do try to stop this dangerous expansion. Contact Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who has to approve such a change. Tell her to tell the Energy Department to stop digging a fifth shaft at WIPP. You can use governor.state.nm.us/contact-the-governor.
John Watson-Jones
Galisteo
The Secret ‘White Trains’ That Carried Nuclear Weapons Around the U.S.
For as long as the United States has had nuclear weapons, officials have struggled with how to transport the destructive technology.
“The epicenter of nuclear transit was the Pantex Plant, about 17 miles outside of downtown Amarillo, Texas, a maze-like complex of dozens of buildings located on 10,000 acres of land. Amarillo was the final destination for almost all of America’s nuclear trains and the Pantex Plant was the nation’s only assembly point for nuclear weapons, a role it maintains to this day.“
BRIANNA NOFIL | UPDATED: MAY 6, 2021, ORIGINAL: MAY 31, 2018 history.com
At first glance, the job posting looks like a standard help-wanted ad for a cross-country trucker. Up to three weeks a month on the road in an 18-wheel tractor-trailer, traveling through the contiguous 48 states. Risks include inclement weather, around-the-clock travel, and potentially adverse environmental conditions. But then the fine print: Candidates should have “experience in performing high-risk armed tactical security work…and maneuvering against a hostile adversary.”
The U.S. government is hiring “Nuclear Materials Couriers.” Since the 1950s, this team of federal agents, most of them ex-military, has been tasked with ferrying America’s roughly 6,000 nuclear warheads and extensive supply of nuclear materials across the roads and highways of the United States. America’s nuclear facilities are spread out throughout the country, on over 2.4 million acres of federal real estate, overseen by the Department of Energy (DOE)—a labyrinth of a system the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists called “highly scattered and fragmented…with few enforceable rules.”
Some sites are for assembly, some are for active weapons, some are for chemicals, some are for mechanical parts. What this means in practice is that nuclear materials have to move around—a lot.