Nuclear Watch New Mexico

Through comprehensive research, public education and effective citizen action, Nuclear Watch New Mexico seeks to promote safety and environmental protection at regional nuclear facilities; mission diversification away from nuclear weapons programs; greater accountability and cleanup in the nation-wide nuclear weapons complex; and consistent U.S. leadership toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

LANL’s Central Mission: Los Alamos Lab officials have recently claimed that LANL has moved away from primarily nuclear weapons to “national security”, but what truly remains as the Labs central mission? Here’s the answer from one of its own documents:

LANL’s “Central Mission”- Presented at: RPI Nuclear Data 2011 Symposium for Criticality Safety and Reactor Applications (PDF) 4/27/11

Banner displaying “Nuclear Weapons Are Now Illegal” at the entrance in front of the Los Alamos National Lab to celebrate the Entry Into Force of the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty on January 22, 2021

The solitary transport route map in Holtec’s license application Environment Report, which accounts for only four of the 131 atomic reactors in the U.S. WCS/ISP’s LA ER route map is nearly identical, differing only in destination point, just 39 miles from Holtec’s.

Follow the Money!

LANL FY 2023 Budget Request

SANDIA FY 2023 Budget Request

PANTEX FY 2023 Budget Request

Kansas City FY 2023 Budget Request

Map of “Nuclear New Mexico”

Nuclear Watch Interactive Map – U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex

In 1985, US President Ronald Reagan and and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev shake hands after signing the arms control agreement banning the use of intermediate-range nuclear missles, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Reduction Treaty.

Waste Lands: America’s Forgotten Nuclear Legacy

The Wall St. Journal has compiled a searchable database of contaminated sites across the US. (view)
Related WSJ report: https://www.wsj.com

2022 BLOG POSTS

New Mexico’s Revolving Nuclear Door: Top Environment Officials Sell Out to Nuclear Weapons Labs

Sophia MerynLANL Cleanup, Los Alamos Nat'l Lab., New Mexico, Pit Production, Tritium, WIPP

As part of a long, ingrained history, senior officials at the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) have repeatedly resigned to go to work for the nuclear weapons labs, the Department of Energy, or DOE contractors. In a number of cases that is where they came from to begin with.

The hierarchy of leadership at NMED starts with the Secretary, Deputy Secretaries and then Division Directors. The position of Resource Protection Division Director is particularly critical because it oversees the two NMED bureaus most directly involved with DOE facilities in New Mexico, the Hazardous Waste Bureau and the DOE Oversight Bureau.

FULL PRESS RELEASE [PDF]

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Biden’s Nuclear Posture Review Fuels the New Nuclear Arms Race

Sophia MerynBiden Administration, FY 2023 Budget, Modernization, North Korea, Nuclear Policy, Nuclear Security, Nuclear Weapons, Plutonium Pit Production, Washington DC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, October 27, 2022 |
Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342 jay@nukewatch.org

Santa Fe, NM– Today, the Biden Administration has released its long awaited unclassified Nuclear Posture Review. It headlines a “Comprehensive, balanced approach to defending vital national security interests and reducing nuclear dangers.” It also declares that “deterrence alone will not reduce nuclear dangers.”

“Deterrence” against others has always been the publicly sold rationale for the United States’ nuclear weapons stockpile. First, there is the inconvenient fact that the U.S. was the first and only to use nuclear weapons in war. But secondly, the United States and the USSR (now Russia) never possessed their huge stockpiles for the sole purpose of deterrence anyway. Instead, their nuclear weapons policies have always been a hybrid of deterrence and nuclear war fighting, which threatens global annihilation to this very day.

FULL PRESS RELEASE [PDF]

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The Cuban Missile Crisis 60 Years Ago, Ukraine Today: What, if Anything, Have we Learned?

Sophia MerynNuclear Weapons, Putin, Russia, Ukraine

By: Sophia Stroud | October 27, 2022
The 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis this year coincides with a world again in a moment of impeding nuclear conflict with the perilous escalation of the situation in Ukraine. The Cuban Missile Crisis has been viewed as the defining confrontation of the modern age, the world’s closest brush with nuclear annihilation, until now. But “the war in Ukraine presents perils of at least equal magnitude.” The world is again on the brink of nuclear war. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said bluntly “there are ‘similarities’ [of the Ukraine War] to the Cuban crisis,” mainly because Russia was now threatened by Western weapons in Ukraine. But how can we get a deeper understanding besides this surface comparison? Now seems like a good time to analyze, not what the lessons of the Cuban missile crisis are for us now, but what, if anything, have we learned from these lessons that we have supposedly have already identified by now, far past half a century later? Have these lessons really taught us anything or are “the Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis [Actually] Pretty Useless Right Now“?
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New & Updated

NNSA Releases New Plutonium Life Study – Key Finding: Plutonium Aging Not Affecting Existing Nuclear Weapons

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, August 10, 2026

Contact:  Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email
Sophia Stroud, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, 505.231.9736 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – In response to Freedom of Information Act requests, the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has released a new study entitled Plutonium Aging: Executive Summary (Unclassified) by long-time scientific advisors to the U.S. government called the JASONs. The key “High-Level Finding” of this new report is:

“The Pu [plutonium] in the stockpile appears to be aging slowly. The degradation issues that have been observed do not call into question present weapons performance.”

Plutonium “pits” are the all-important radioactive cores or “triggers” of nuclear weapons. The NNSA has repeatedly claimed that potential aging effects drive the need for the aggressive expansion of plutonium pit production, which is the agency’s most expensive and complex program ever. The Pentagon has stated that expanded pit production is one of the most critical issues in its $2 trillion “modernization” program to keep nuclear weapons forever.

However, the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) has repeatedly stated that the NNSA has no credible costs estimates and no “Integrated Master Schedule” for simultaneous production at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in northern New Mexico and the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. In fact, DOE and NNSA have been on the GAO’s “High Risk List” for project mismanagement and waste of taxpayers’ dollars since 1991. At more than $30 billion, the plutonium pit plant at SRS is on track to become the most expensive building in U.S. history. A comparable amount will be spent at LANL on facility upgrades and related projects, for which the NNSA fails to keep total aggregated costs.

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Today, August 6, 2026, is the 81st Anniversary of the U.S. Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima.

Sophia MerynDOE, Downwinders, Environmental Impact, Hiroshima, ICAN, Japan, Los Alamos Nat'l Lab., Modernization, Nagasaki, New Mexico, Nuclear Weapons, Plutonium Pit Production, TPNW

Recommended Reading: John Hersey and the horrors of Hiroshima

The American journalist’s account of the Hiroshima bombing and its aftermath, told through the eyes of Japanese survivors, forced the world to reckon with the terrifying power of nuclear weapons.

Iain MacGregor August 5, 2026 engelsbergideas.com

The New START treaty – enforced since 2011 and the last remaining arms‑control agreement between the United States and Russia – expired in February 2026 with nothing to replace it. The final legal barrier limiting the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals was removed, ushering in what analysts describe as a period of Great Power uncertainty. China, meanwhile, is rapidly expanding and modernising its nuclear forces, with its stockpile more than doubling in just five years and further growth expected throughout the decade.

In the Middle East, the erosion of nuclear restraint has accelerated sharply. Recent US-Israeli attacks have pushed Iran closer than ever to abandoning the Nuclear Non‑Proliferation Treaty (NPT): Tehran still possesses enough enriched uranium to place it within short technical reach of multiple nuclear warheads, while senior political and security figures openly debate withdrawal from the NPT as a defensive necessity rather than a diplomatic taboo. The precedent – of a major regional power crossing the nuclear threshold outside any arms‑control framework – would reverberate far beyond the region.

North Korea, emboldened by global fragmentation, insists that its arsenal is ‘irreversible’. Across Europe and Asia, public opinion in countries such as Poland, Turkey and South Korea is shifting toward domestic nuclear capability as confidence in US security guarantees becomes frayed. The precarious equilibrium of the non‑proliferation era is cracking just when the living memory of the bomb’s human cost has never been more vital.

In such a landscape, the work of remembering what nuclear weapons do – not in theory, but to human bodies and cities – becomes urgent again. Eighty years ago, one American writer succeeded in forcing the world to confront this reality. His name was John Hersey, and the story he told in August 1946 in the New Yorker magazine, about the world’s first nuclear strike against the Japanese port city of Hiroshima the previous year, remains one of the clearest moral documents of the atomic age…

Ian MacGregor outlines precisely above the current state and reality of the new nuclear arms race we are now in, more dangerous than the first.

“Rationality will not save us… this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war.” Robert McNamara

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Nuclear Watchdog Sues for Plutonium Pit Production “Special Study”

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, August 4, 2026

Contact: Jules Zacher, Esq., 215.888.5183, | Email
Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email
Sophia Stroud, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, 505.231.9736 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – Nuclear Watch New Mexico has sued the Department of Energy under the Freedom of Information Act for its Special Study of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Leadership and Management of the Plutonium Pit Production Mission. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is the semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency within DOE.

Plutonium “pits” are the radioactive cores or “triggers” of nuclear weapons. Their expanded manufacturing has been the chokepoint of resumed industrial-scale nuclear weapons production by the U.S. Crucially, no future pit production is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing stockpile. Instead, it is all for new-design nuclear weapons for the new arms race. These new weapons can’t be tested because of the existing global testing moratorium, thereby perhaps degrading confidence in the stockpile. Or new-design nuclear weapons testing could prompt the U.S. to resume testing, which would have severe international proliferation consequences.

Plutonium pit production is the NNSA’s most expensive and complex program to date. However, the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) has repeatedly stated that the agency has no credible costs estimates and no “Integrated Master Schedule” for simultaneous production at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in northern New Mexico and the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. In fact, DOE and NNSA have been on the GAO’s “High Risk List” for project mismanagement and waste of taxpayers’ dollars since 1991. At more than $30 billion, the plutonium pit plant at SRS is on track to become the most expensive building in U.S. history. A comparable amount will be spent at LANL on facility upgrades and related projects, for which the NNSA fails to keep total aggregated costs.

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Nuclear Watch New Mexico sues Department of Energy for plutonium pit report

Jay Coghlan, director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, wrote in a statement there is a “massive coverup” related to plutonium pit production.

“To grease expanded nuclear weapons production, they have rescinded nuclear safety regulations, illegally restricted the access of the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, and are withholding crucial documents from the American taxpayer,” Coghlan wrote.

“We hope this lawsuit will help to bring [the National Nuclear Security Administration] plutonium house of cards tumbling down,” he added.

, Santa Fe New Mexican | August 5, 2026 santafenewmexican.com

A nuclear watchdog group that focuses on Los Alamos National Laboratory recently sued the federal government for what it says are failures to comply with open records law and hand over a study.

Nuclear Watch New Mexico filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on July 23 against the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration. The group on Dec. 22 filed a records request under the Freedom of Information Act seeking a copy of a study related to plutonium pit production, the complaint states, but hasn’t received any of the records.

A spokesperson for the Department of Energy, which also houses the National Nuclear Security Administration, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

LANL is for now the only facility in the nation capable of producing plutonium pits, which serve as the trigger devices for nuclear weapons…

Nuclear Weapons Issues & The Accelerating Arms Race: July 2026

Sophia MerynBudget, Modernization, MOX, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Pit Production, Plutonium Pit Production

Nuclear Weapons:

Budget: The House of Representatives passed a fiscal 2027 continuing resolution to keep the government running through Dec. 4 (the new fiscal year begins Oct 1). The White House Office of Management and Budget is requesting a series of anomalies, or exceptions, to the CR rule that funding be limited to the levels of the prior fiscal year. One anomaly is for the new Trump-class battleship.

For the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA): it’s the Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade (the new powerline across the Caja del Rio); enhanced subcritical tests at the Nevada National Security Site; and, most dangerous of all, allowing the NNSA to reprogram funding by itself within its Total Weapons Activities budget category.

The Senate is basically doing the same, plus an anomaly for ‘‘21– D–401 Hoisting Capability Project’’ at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. WIPP has been operationally shut down for a few months now due to a burnt-out hoist motor.

The House and Senate must resolve their relatively minor differences and get Trump’s signature before October 1 to prevent a government shutdown.

Regular authorization (the annual Defense Authorization Act) and appropriations are unlikely to move until mid-term elections (~86 days to go).

Plutonium pit production:

Other/Related

https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2026/08/why-hill-republicans-are-competing-for-nuclear-waste-01015140 Why some Republicans want to bring nuclear waste home – For decades, politicians have treated nuclear waste as politically radioactive. Now, Republicans are competing to bring it home. The Department of Energy announced last week that it had signed memorandums of agreement with Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Idaho to explore creating facilities to support the full nuclear fuel cycle — from enrichment of uranium and fabricating fuel to disposing of waste. Rather than resisting an initiative that could bring more nuclear waste to their states, some Republicans are actively courting the Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses, arguing they could anchor advanced nuclear industries and bring billions of dollars in investment.

*Also mixed in with AI and data centers, for which Small Modular Reactors might supply power.

Accelerating Arms Race:

Fire in glovebox at LANL plutonium facility sparks safety discussion

“The Board is concerned that this significant level of access denial and limitation is occurring simultaneously with a considerable increase in production at defense nuclear facilities and regulatory change,” said the report.

Nuclear Newswire | July 30, 2026 ans.org

According to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) report, a fire occurred in a glovebox in the plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory on June 15. A test involving nonnuclear material was underway in the furnace inside the glovebox at the time of the incident.

An explanation for the cause of the fire has yet to be released. The incident has incited discussions among laboratory personnel and management regarding fire safety practices at the facility, including concerns raised by resident inspectors that most gloveboxes in the facility lack automatic fire suppression and that multiple similar preventable incidents have occurred at the facility in the past few years.

What we know: The DNFSB report said that on June 15, personnel were conducting a thermal treatment test of an americium recovery resin. The resin, which contained no nuclear material, had been placed in a furnace inside a glovebox. Having received a permit to do so, they left the room unattended, and when they returned they “smelled an unexpected odor and then saw smoke and subsequently flames coming from the furnace.”

NM Environment Secretary James C. Kenney Takes Aim At Department Of Energy LANL Legacy Waste Cleanup Program During Trinity Commemoration Event In Santa Fe

‘This is not about feelings. When are we talking about feelings; this is about money. If you show me the numbers for legacy waste cleanup at Los Alamos moved to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. You show me numbers that you’re investing in New Mexico and I’ll show you some feelings, but until that time, you have the feelings that I have, which are that I’m really annoyed and I’m really bothered. I’m going to say to say it again. This isn’t about feelings – in some ways it is a lot about feelings in this room – but when it comes to legacy waste cleanup it’s not about feelings – it’s about moving the waste from Los Alamos and getting it into WIPP,” Kenney said.

Los Alamos Reporter | July 12, 2026 losalamosreporter.com

New Mexico Environment Department Sec. James [Kenney] was the guest speaker at Sunday’s annual Trinity Test Commemoration at St. Michael’s High School in Santa Fe, and was expected to outline the department’s efforts to hold the federal government accountable for cleanup efforts and the protection of New Mexico’s water resources.

Other speakers were Dr. Michael Ketterer, Professor Emeritus at Northern Arizona University; Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico; and Tina Cordova, Co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. The event is organized by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, Back from the Brink New Mexico Hub, Interfaith Power and Light New Mexico, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Soka Gakkai International-USA, and the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium.

Later in the afternoon when it was Secretary Kenney’s turn to speak, he recognized that 81 years ago with the Trinity Test, New Mexico and the world changed in “a moment of non-consent, a moment that nobody knew was coming”. He said it changed the trajectory of communities like Los Alamos and all over the state of New Mexico, who are dealing with the fallout of what transpired.

While pointing NMED staff members in the audience who had chosen to attend the event, Kenney said he wanted to be really clear that the Environment Department staff fully recognizes that their past is their call to action. He called those employees the community’s last bastion to hold the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration accountable.

Expanded federal law says these states and parts of others were downwind, but many don’t know they could be compensated

Nuclear fallout gave her cancer. Now she’s a dogged voice for America’s downwinders

By: Lois M. Collins, Deseret News | July 12, 2026 deseret.com

When she was 29, Mary Dickson got thyroid cancer and chalked it up to bad luck or bad genes.

Her life had been pretty idyllic, despite being raised against the frightening backdrop of the Cold War.

She spent hours of her childhood running around in the gullies by her home near the mouth of Parleys Canyon in Salt Lake City. The neighborhood was packed with kids who pretended those rising and falling hills were rollercoasters, racing up and down, laughing and screaming. With seven kids in her house, she always had playmates.

Dickson and her friends also pretended at school. Children were taught to huddle under their wooden desks and cover their heads with their hands, pretending Russians were dropping bombs. Each child brought a bleach bottle filled with water, name scrawled in indelible marker so they’d have something to drink should bombs actually fall. Sometimes, they cowered in a “fallout shelter” — a crawlspace under the grade school— waiting for an audible all-clear.

But as most children get to do, Dickson grew up. She went to college, launched a career in journalism, married. Then came the cancer, with its then-brutal treatment: removal of her thyroid and surrounding lymph nodes, followed by radioactive iodine-infused medicinal drinks that made her ovaries light up during monitoring. Hospital staff put a “Caution, radioactive material!” sign on her hospital room door. Even those delivering meals would reach in just far enough to put food on a nearby tray.

KEY POINTS:

  • Mary Dickson got thyroid cancer at 29 and only years later discovered it was caused by radioactive fallout from U.S. nuclear weapons tests.
  • The government acknowledges downwinders throughout Utah, Idaho and New Mexico, as well as parts of Arizona, Nevada and Missouri.
  • But advocates for downwinders cite gaps — cancers and locations — and many people do not know they could be compensated.

Plaintiffs Demand Release of Critical Documents and Extension of Public Comment Period on Expanded Plutonium Bomb Core Production

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, July 6, 2026

Contact: Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email
Scott Yundt, Tri-Valley CAREs, 925.443.7148 | Email

Georgetown, SC — Today the South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP) notified the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), that it must publicly release three critical documents. At issue is the fact that NNSA is withholding important information from American taxpayers during a public comment period for a Pit Production Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS).[1] The public comment period ends this July 16 (ironically the 81st anniversary of the Trinity Test of the first plutonium pit).

Plutonium “pits” are the radioactive fissile cores or “triggers” of nuclear weapons. None of NNSA’s future pit production is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, it is all for new-design nuclear weapons that could prompt the U.S. to return to testing and accelerate the new arms race.

SCELP, representing the nonprofit organizations Savannah River Site Watch, Tri-Valley CAREs and Nuclear Watch New Mexico, sued NNSA to force it to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. This resulted in a federal judge finding NNSA violated NEPA and the agency ultimately agreeing to complete a Pit Production PEIS. Now it appears that NNSA is cherry-picking information to support its aggressive agenda of expanded plutonium pit production and suppressing negative information that could work against it.

The three documents that SCELP is demanding are:

  1. A new plutonium pit life study by independent scientists known as the JASONs. NNSA claims that potential aging effects drive the need for the immediate production of new pits, thereby ruling out the alternative of reusing some 15,000 existing pits. In contrast, a 2006 JASON pit life study concluded that most pit types have reliable lives of more than 100 years and those that don’t have relatively easy fixes[2] (the average pit age is now ~43). We believe that NNSA has been withholding an unclassified summary of the new JASON pit life study since the end of 2025. NNSA has not released it despite requests by Members of Congress and public Freedom of Information Act requests.
  2. A Department of Energy “Special Study” on NNSA leadership and management of its troubled plutonium pit production program, scheduled for completion in December 2025.[3] That Study is expected to be critical of the new pit production plant at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, which will be the most expensive building in US history ($30 billion-plus). DOE has not released this Special Study despite requests by Members of Congress and public Freedom of Information Act requests.
  3. A new “Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis” (PSHA) for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that is nearly a decade overdue.[4] A 2007 LANL seismic analysis prompted badly needed seismic upgrades to the Lab’s plutonium pit production facility. NNSA’s April 2026 draft Pit Production PEIS stated that the new PSHA would be completed in early 2026,[5] yet it is still not available for public comment.

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Nuclear Weapons Issues & The Accelerating Arms Race: June 2026

Sophia MerynBudget, Modernization, MOX, Nuclear Weapons, Plutonium Pit Production

Nuclear Weapons:

Budget: Record $1 trillion military budget. Now Trump wants a reconciliation bill that adds $350 billion. He also wants the “Save America” voter suppression Act attached to it which is bound to be ruled not proper by the Senate parliamentarian (reconciliation bills are supposed to deal only with the budget). This could lead to a crisis of some kind.

Favorable polling for Trump is going down with the war in Iran and economic impacts. Will voter suppression will be the only thing that keeps Republicans in control of Congress?

There is also talk of $80 billion supplemental appropriation for the war in Iran.

Defense Authorization Act:

  • Passed by House, Senate is considering.
  • Hard line House congressional Trumpers want the Save America Act attached to the DAA. That would kill its passage in the Senate and probably won’t happen.
  • Proposed 180 pits per year by 2050.
  • Numerically expands the US nuclear weapons stockpile to deal with the alleged China threat. This will probably result in MIRVing of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and more warheads on already MIRVed sub-launched warheads.
  • Proposes to more closely integrate US and Israeli military and guarantee $3 billion per year to Israeli military.

Overall trend very bad. Welcome to the new nuclear arms race.

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Lawmakers aim to force University of Michigan to follow local zoning rules

The planned computer data center campus is a joint project between the University of Michigan and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory on the north side of Textile Road across from the Ford Rawsonville Plant in Ypsilanti Township.

By: Sam Jane | SJane@mlive.com, M Live | June 25, 2026 mlive.com

ANN ARBOR, MI – Three Michigan lawmakers introduced legislation that would curb the University of Michigan’s authority to buy land and expand its footprint across the state.

State Reps. Jimmie Wilson Jr., D-Ypsilanti, Jason Morgan, D-Ann Arbor, and Morgan Foreman, D-Ann Arbor, drafted two bills to go in front of the Michigan Legislature.

The new legislation would require any property UM acquires after Jan. 1, 2027 to remain subject to local zoning rules.

Testing the waters: Feds stop paying to sample LANL runoff

Buckman Direct Diversion picks up the cost for testing the Rio Grande

The federal government has also deferred its remediation of a dump site called Material Disposal Area C, citing its proximity to “active facility operations.” The dump resides across the street from the plutonium handling facility, where work is taking place round the clock.

That facility — officially known as PF-4 — is the linchpin in the nation’s modernization of its nuclear arsenal, which is estimated to cost about $1.7 trillion over the next three decades, or about two Manhattan Projects per year. Los Alamos’ budget for 2026 is expected to be around $5.2 billion, much of it for weapons production. Its clean-up budget, meanwhile, is around $281 million.

“There’s no reason in hell we should’ve lost that $96,000,” said Anna Hansen, a former county commissioner and Buckman board chair. “It’s a drop in the bucket.”

By: , Source NM | June 12, 2026 sourcenm.com

With every spring snowmelt or heavy summer monsoon comes the chance that radioactive particles and toxic chemicals could run down the lobed canyons that are etched into the sides of the Pajarito Plateau and outside the boundaries of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Evidence of Cold War experiments have been detected at high levels in these stormwaters, including traces of high explosives, metals and other radioactive particles, which dispersed across multiple watersheds when scientists tested weapons components in the open air decades ago or were buried in unlined waste pits.

Daniel Ellsberg vs. “Ordinary Insanity”

A new documentary issues an urgent warning about our dangerous nuclear delusions.

By Norman Solomon, The Nation | June 9, 2026 thenation.com

A few days before Thanksgiving in 2021, Daniel Ellsberg looked directly into a camera lens and talked about nuclear preparations for annihilating almost everyone on Earth. “That is insane,” he said. “And you have to call it a kind of ordinary insanity, because it’s so widely shared.”

The new film An Ordinary Insanity condenses Ellsberg’s essential message into a half hour. It follows the acclaimed 2009 documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Judith Ehrlich—who codirected that Oscar-nominated movie and is the director of An Ordinary Insanity—says that “as his understanding of nuclear war evolved, Dan confronted it for us and dug deep into its roots.”

When Ellsberg gave the 7,000 pages of the top-secret Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971, he was risking the rest of his life in prison for exposing the official deceptions behind the Vietnam War. That brave act, causing him to be vilified and beloved, began his five decades of tireless antiwar efforts. Through it all, his main preoccupation continued to be reducing the risk of nuclear war.

Early in his professional life, Ellsberg had become a “national security” insider, with expertise in the command and control of nuclear weapons along with strategic planning. Access to official calculations made him aware of scenarios for initiating Armageddon. Some classified plans for starting a nuclear war, with a first strike on the Soviet Union and China, were beyond shocking.

“The Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated in 1961 that the effects of our carrying out those plans, the annual operational plan for which the weapons existed and were on alert, they estimated it would kill 600 million people. A hundred Holocausts,” Ellsberg says in An Ordinary Insanity. “When I saw that estimate in the White House, I thought that was the most evil planning that had ever existed in the history of humanity.”

As scientific research advanced and climate modeling discovered nuclear winter, estimates like 600 million became outdated.

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ACTION ALERTS

Public Hearings: Submit Comments on the Draft LANL SWEIS

  • Review and submit comments on the Draft LANL SWEIS through March 11, 2025.
    • Comments may be submitted via one of the following means:
      • By email to: LANLSWEIS@nnsa.doe.gov; By mail to Mr. Stephen Hoffman, LANL SWEIS Document Manager, DOE/NNSA, 3747 W. Jemez Road, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87544; Verbally at one of the public hearings; In written form at one of the public hearings

    • Public hearings are scheduled for:

      • February 11, 2025, at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center, Sweeney Room, 1-4 p.m. and 5-8 p.m. There will be a virtual option for these two meeting. Virtual hearing access instructions (g., website link or phone number) will be announced at least 15 days before the hearing and will be published in local newspapers, noticed to the GovDelivery mailing list, and available on the following websites: https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/nnsa-nepa-reading-roomand https://www.energy.gov/nepa/public-comment-opportunities.
      • February 12, 2025, in Española at Mision y Convento, 5-8 p.m. This meeting is in-person only.
      • February 13, 2025, in Los Alamos at Fuller Lodge, Pajarito Room, 5-8 p.m. In-person only.

Briefing on Plutonium Migration at the Los Alamos National Laboratory

Who:        Nuclear Watch New Mexico and chemist Dr. Michael Ketterer, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Arizona University

What:       Nuclear Watch has mapped plutonium migration based on sampling data from Intellus, the Lab’s environmental sampling database. Our map graphically demonstrates widespread contamination down the Rio Grande to Cochiti Lake and vertically to deep groundwater. We believe it shows the need for comprehensive cleanup at LANL instead of proposed “cap and cover” that will leave toxic and radioactive wastes permanently buried in unlined pits and trenches.

When:      11:00 am MT Thursday April 25, 2024

Where:     https://us06web.zoom.us/j/95570087953?pwd=R1hNUEIyb1BLaktDQzZQaWNEdlpoQT09

                  Meeting ID: 922 1214 9822 Passcode: 975887

This virtual briefing is for media and the public. Nuclear Watch and Dr. Ketterer will briefly present followed by Q&A. Media and reporters will be given preference for questions. Please feel free to forward this notice to others.

Our plutonium contamination map and background materials will be available at www.nukewatch.org by 10:00 am MT Thursday April 25.

First Annual Plutonium Trail Caravan

On Saturday, April 6, you will be able to join the First Annual Plutonium Trail Caravan!  It will start at Pojoaque and end at Lamy.  It will also stop in Eldorado and you are welcome to join the caravan on its way to the final stop in Lamy.  There will be several stops along the way, with more details coming soon.  Please save the date for 30 minutes on the afternoon of April 6.  There will be fun satiric songs, banners, and plenty of people to ask questions about risks to neighborhoods on the route.

WIPP Information Exchange Dec. 13 – In Person and Virtual

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO) and Salado Isolation Mining Contractors (SIMCO) (Permittees) will conduct a virtual WIPP Information Exchange pursuant to Permit Part 4, Section 4.2.1.5, Legacy TRU Waste Disposal Plan. This exchange will discuss information regarding the Legacy TRU Waste Disposal Plan.

Questions and comments outside the scope of the Legacy TRU Waste Disposal Plan should be directed to the WIPP Community Forum.

Wednesday, December 13, 2023, 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.

Skeen-Whitlock Building
4021 National Parks Hwy
Carlsbad, NM 88220

REGISTRATION:
In-Person Registration:
WIPP Information Exchange In-Person Registration: https://form.jotform.com/222836798629172

Virtual Registration:
WIPP Information Exchange Virtual Registration:

QUESTIONS:
For questions regarding this information exchange please contact the WIPP Information Center at infocntr@wipp.ws or by calling 1-800-336-9477.

Upholding the CTBT Regime in a Time of Adversity

Thursday, Nov. 16, 10:00-11:30 am, U.S. Eastern Time

RSVP via Zoom by November 14

As with other critical nuclear risk reduction and arms control agreements, the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is under threat due to inattention, diplomatic inaction, and worsening relations between nuclear-armed adversaries.

Disturbingly, but not surprisingly, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill from the Russian parliament to “un-ratify” the CTBT, ostensibly to “mirror” the United States’ posture toward the treaty and somehow pressure the United States to ratify the pact.

Putin says Russia will not resume nuclear explosive testing unless the United States does, but Russian officials have accused the United States of making preparations to resume nuclear testing. U.S. officials deny any such plans. Russia, China, and the United States, however, all continue to engage in military nuclear activities at their former test sites.

THIS Friday! Public Meeting: WIPP Renewal, September 22, 5 – 7PM

WIPP Renewal Public Meeting – In Person or Online

WebEx link: nmed-oit.webex.com…

Meeting number: 2634 380 5952
Password: ESphqvid567
Join by phone
+1-415-655-0001 US Toll
Access code: 2634 380 5952

Location: IN-PERSON or ONLINE

ONLINE: WebEx: nmed-oit.webex.com…
IN-PERSON:
Larrazolo Auditorium
Harold Runnels Bldg
1190 So. St. Francis Drive
Santa Fe, NM 87505
or
Skeen-Whitlock Bldg
4021 National Parks Hwy
Carlsbad, NM 88220

Contact Pamela.Jones@state.nm.us

Let’s Keep New Mexico the Land of Enchantment, Not the Land of Nuclear Weapons & Radioactive Wastes! 

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Interfaith Panel Discussion on Nuclear Disarmament - August 9

Interfaith Panel Discussion on the 77th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki, Japan
Watch this video on YouTube.

HELP US SUPPORT NEW MEXICO’S GOVERNOR IN ACTING TO STOP WIPP EXPANSION!

STOP “FOREVER WIPP!”

The Department of Energy is seeking to modify the nuclear waste permit for southeastern New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Dragging out WIPP’s operations decades past the original 20-year agreement violates the social contract made with New Mexicans. WIPP is being equipped to take the waste that will be generated from production of plutonium pits for nuclear warheads, and it was never supposed to do that. An expansion of WIPP will impact the entire country, not just residents of southeastern New Mexico.

View the videos below for more information, and, if you live in an area that may be endangered by these nuclear waste transportation risks, please consider making your own “This is My Neighborhood” video!

Background Information – Problems with Nuclear Waste

Mixed Waste Landfill Facts

Mixed Waste Landfill Facts
Watch this video on YouTube.

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New Nuclear Media

Daniel Ellsberg vs. “Ordinary Insanity”

A new documentary issues an urgent warning about our dangerous nuclear delusions.

By Norman Solomon, The Nation | June 9, 2026 thenation.com

A few days before Thanksgiving in 2021, Daniel Ellsberg looked directly into a camera lens and talked about nuclear preparations for annihilating almost everyone on Earth. “That is insane,” he said. “And you have to call it a kind of ordinary insanity, because it’s so widely shared.”

The new film An Ordinary Insanity condenses Ellsberg’s essential message into a half hour. It follows the acclaimed 2009 documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Judith Ehrlich—who codirected that Oscar-nominated movie and is the director of An Ordinary Insanity—says that “as his understanding of nuclear war evolved, Dan confronted it for us and dug deep into its roots.”

When Ellsberg gave the 7,000 pages of the top-secret Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971, he was risking the rest of his life in prison for exposing the official deceptions behind the Vietnam War. That brave act, causing him to be vilified and beloved, began his five decades of tireless antiwar efforts. Through it all, his main preoccupation continued to be reducing the risk of nuclear war.

Early in his professional life, Ellsberg had become a “national security” insider, with expertise in the command and control of nuclear weapons along with strategic planning. Access to official calculations made him aware of scenarios for initiating Armageddon. Some classified plans for starting a nuclear war, with a first strike on the Soviet Union and China, were beyond shocking.

“The Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated in 1961 that the effects of our carrying out those plans, the annual operational plan for which the weapons existed and were on alert, they estimated it would kill 600 million people. A hundred Holocausts,” Ellsberg says in An Ordinary Insanity. “When I saw that estimate in the White House, I thought that was the most evil planning that had ever existed in the history of humanity.”

As scientific research advanced and climate modeling discovered nuclear winter, estimates like 600 million became outdated.

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