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.
New & Updated
Watchdog groups call review at US nuclear lab ‘sham’ process
“This is too little too late, a sham process designed to circumvent citizen enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act,” said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. “The key sentence in NNSA’s announcement is that absent any new decisions in the site-wide environmental impact statement, the agency will continue to implement decisions it previously made behind closed doors.”
By | August 19, 2022 apnews.com
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. government is planning to review the environmental effects of operations at one of the nation’s prominent nuclear weapons laboratories, but its notice issued Friday leaves out federal goals to ramp up production of plutonium cores used in the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
The National Nuclear Security Administration said the review — being done to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act — will look at the potential environmental effects of alternatives for operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory for the next 15 years.
That work includes preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons worldwide and other projects related to national security and global stability, the notice said.
Watchdog groups contend that regardless of the review, the NNSA will march ahead with its production plans for plutonium cores at Los Alamos.
Federal agency to conduct sitewide review of Los Alamos National Laboratory
“This is in direct contradiction to the National Environmental Policy Act’s requirement that federal agencies take a ‘hard look’ at proposed actions before implementation,” Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said in a statement.
So much happened after 2008 that called for a new, thorough impact study years ago, including the plutonium facility’s “checkered nuclear safety history” that led to its major operations shutting down for more than three years, Coghlan said.
A new sitewide analysis now, Coghlan said, will merely “rubber stamp the billions of taxpayers’ dollars being sunk into a predetermined decision to expand plutonium pit production at LANL.”
By Scott Wyland swyland@sfnewmexican.com The Santa Fe New Mexican | August 19, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
The federal agency that oversees nuclear weapons will conduct a sitewide environmental review at Los Alamos National Laboratory, breaking from its past resistance to performing fresh analysis of potential impacts as the lab gears up to make 30 nuclear warhead triggers a year.
The National Nuclear Security Administration announced in the Federal Register on Friday it would do a sitewide analysis of the lab under the National Environmental Protection Act and would take public comment until Oct. 3.
It’s the first time the agency, a branch of the U.S. Department of Energy, has done a new sitewide environmental impact statement in 14 years.
“Each Day Begins with the Sun Rising” – 77 Years Later, 4 Artists from Hiroshima Reflect
Today marks the 77 years since the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan during World War II. Three days ago, August 6, marks the same anniversary for the bombing of the city of Hiroshima, Japan. In both cities the blast completely annihilated everything within a 1-mile radius from the center of explosion. The bombs not only decimated the current population, destroyed property, and scorched the land; the entirety of the ways of life of these communities was ripped away in a terrorizing flash.
"The atomic explosion almost completely destroyed Hiroshima's identity as a city. Over a fourth of the population was killed in one stroke and an additional fourth seriously injured, so that even if there had been no damage to structures and installations the normal city life would still have been completely shattered." - The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (atomicarchive.com)
The total effects of the only two nuclear weapons ever detonated in warfare are not fully known, despite 77 years of people (scientists, military experts, civilians, Japan, etc.) trying to estimate the number of the dead and injured. "The most credible estimates cluster around a “low” of 110,000 mortalities and a “high” of 210,000, an enormous gap (the estimates for each city have a range of ±10,000)." - Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
The events of August 6 and 9, 1945, forever changed the world. But today, besides continuing to attempt to know the extent of the cost of life of these bombings, how are we moving forward in reflection and in growth? How, as a global community, can we explore and prioritize processing the deep, deep pain of these events? The city of Nagasaki has been rebuilt since World War II and is today an important tourist site, serving as a significant spiritual center for movements to ban nuclear weapons. Aging survivors, known in Japan as hibakusha, continue to push for a nuclear ban and hope to convince younger generations to join the movement.
ATOMIC MASS In Santa Fe, an Archbishop calls for nuclear disarmament through faith alone.
“Jay [Coghlan] of Nukewatch, invited by Wester to answer an audience question about Ukraine having lost deterrence when it returned Soviet nuclear weapons to Moscow, emphasized that Ukraine never had the controls to actually detonate nuclear weapons stored on its territory. Coughlin then echoed Beamont’s statement, saying ‘we can flip the argument, say that Russia is shielded from consequences because it has nuclear weapons. Deterrence has been flipped on its head.’”
BY: KELSEY D. ATHERTON, INK STICK MEDIA | August 10, 2022 inkstickmedia.com
At least 100 parishioners must have been in attendance at the special mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi on Aug. 9, 2022. The Tuesday afternoon service at the historically significant church did not fall under the usual schedule. Following an afternoon rich in monsoon thunderstorms, the clouds cleared, allowing regulars and visitors alike to file in to hear what, exactly, the Archbishop of the Santa Fe Archdiocese had to say about the work of peace.
“In the way that 109 East Palace was the gateway to nuclear oblivion, I hope that the Basilica of St. Francis can be the gateway to global nuclear disarmament,” John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe, told the assembled crowd.
The address is instantly familiar to those fluent in nuclear history and opaque outside of it. During the Manhattan Project, the US effort to develop and build an Atomic Bomb in Los Alamos, 109 East Palace was the place to arrive before being covertly whisked away to the lab.
WHEN IT COMES TO SALVATION FROM NUCLEAR OBLIVION, FAITH IN THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE TASK ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH. THERE MUST BE WORK THAT MAKES IT REAL.
It was the work of Los Alamos that made Aug. 9 the occasion for a mass dedicated to nuclear disarmament. On Aug. 9, 1945, the US dropped Fat Man, the second and so far last nuclear weapon used in war. The bomb fell on Nagasaki, a Japanese city hastily added to the targeting list. While the bombardier claims the clouds parted for visual confirmation of the target, it is at least equally plausible the crew decided to drop the bomb by radar targeting and fly back to base, instead of ditching it in the ocean or crashing on the way back.
Archbishop Wester apologizes for harms caused by nuclear weapons industry
“I challenge us at the most personal level to ask ourselves, ‘How do we live each day? Do we live each day consistent with the core values of faith, love and compassion … for one another?” – Archbishop Wester
Catholic News Service | August 10, 2022 catholicnews.com
New Mexico archbishop whose archdiocese is home to two major federal nuclear weapons research facilities and an Air Force base apologized for the atomic bombings of Japan and to Indigenous New Mexicans, uranium miners and scientists suffering from ill health related to the nuclear weapons industry.
Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe said the time has come for the world to fervently work to undertake the long process to achieve nuclear disarmament.
He made the comments in a homily during a Mass Aug. 9 marking the 77th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan.Continue reading
On this solemn anniversary, another look at a nuclear future
“Continuing to develop weapons that don’t just kill but have the potential to decimate the planet is a seemingly accepted part of modern life.
Yet on this anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, it is useful to consider whether humanity can find a different path forward.”
OUR VIEW | The Santa Fe New Mexican | August 8, 2022 santafenewmexican.com
August is a particularly dark month in human history.
On Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, humanity revealed it had the ability to destroy itself; the United States chose to drop atomic bombs first on Hiroshima and then on Nagasaki to force Japan to surrender and end World War II. The destruction was horrific, with tens of thousands of people killed, buildings leveled and thousands more dying of lingering radiation sickness in the years that followed.
New Mexico played an outsized role in the bomb’s deployment. It was developed by the Manhattan Project scientists in the then-secret city of Los Alamos and tested at White Sands. Today, Los Alamos National Laboratory continues its mission of solving national security challenges, with the current emphasis gearing up to manufacture the plutonium pits at the core of nuclear weapons.
By 2026, LANL is supposed to be ready to make 30 pits a year, with another 50 pits annually coming from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina by 2030.
The weight of a butterfly
“Of the 64 kilograms of uranium in the Hiroshima bomb, less than one kilogram underwent fission, and the entire energy of the explosion came from just over half a gram of matter that was converted to energy.
That is about the weight of a butterfly.”
By Emily Strasser, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | August 6, 2022 thebulletin.org
The design for the first atomic bomb was frighteningly simple: One lump of a special kind of uranium, the projectile, was fired at a very high speed into another lump of that same rare uranium, the target. When the two collided, they began a nuclear chain reaction, and it was only a tiny fraction of a second before the bomb exploded, forever splitting history between the time before the atomic bomb and the time after.
At 17 seconds past 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay released the bomb from a height of 31,600 feet above the target, a T-shaped bridge in the center of Hiroshima, Japan.
The morning was cloudless, as the weather plane sent to scout for the Enola Gay had reported in the hour before. If the weather had been poor, the plane would have set its course to one of the two alternate targets. As the bomb fell, a schoolboy closed his eyes and began to count as his friends hid along the way to school.
Nuclear threat higher now than in Cold War, British official warns
“’We are entering a dangerous new age,’ [Lovegrove] added, citing the spread of advanced weapons and cyberwarfare.”
BY Ellen Francis © WASHINGTON POST | July 28, 2022 washingtonpost.com
Britain’s national security adviser has warned that a breakdown in dialogue among rival powers is raising the risk of nuclear war, with fewer safeguards now than during the Cold War.
As such, he said, Britain strongly supports President Biden’s talking with Beijing.
Posts Related to: NUCLEAR SAFETY
NukeWatch NM Heads to DC To Stop U.S. Nuclear Weapons “Trillion Dollar Trainwreck”
NukeWatch NM Heads to Washington to Press Congress, Obama Officials
To Stop U.S. Nuclear Weapons “Trillion Dollar Trainwreck” —
LANL Whistleblower Chuck Montaño to Be Honored
Three members of Nuclear Watch New Mexico will visit Washington, DC from April 17 to April 20 to oppose U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons projects, which they say will lead to a “trillion dollar trainwreck” through out-of control spending, more radioactive waste generation, and weapons proliferation. The group will meet with the New Mexican congressional delegation, committee staffers, and administration officials with responsibility for U. S. nuclear policies to press for new funding priorities.
The Nuclear Watch NM delegation will be working with more than 50 colleagues from two dozen other states who are participating in the 28th annual Alliance for Nuclear Accountability “DC Days.” They will distribute copies of the ANA’s new report “Trillion Dollar Trainwreck” a detailed analysis of the Obama Administration’s latest plans to spend more money on nuclear weapons without truly enhancing U.S. security.
Jay Coghlan, NukeWatch director and president of the ANA Board of Directors, said, “Massive spending on nuclear weapons ‘modernization’ creates potential catastrophic risks for U.S. taxpayers, the environment and world peace. We will press policy-makers to cut programs that fund dangerous DOE boondoggles. The money saved should be redirected to dismantling weapons and cleaning up the legacy of nuclear weapons research, testing and production.”
NukeWatch NM Steering Committee member Chuck Montaño will receive recognition during DC Days from the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) at a reception on April 19, 2015, at the Hart Senate Office Building. He, along with California’s senior U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee Rep. Adam Smith (D.-WA), will be among those honored by ANA for their efforts to hold the nuclear weapons military-industrial complex accountable. Montaño is being recognized for his advocacy confronting whistleblower and employee abuse, managerial malfeasance and fraudulent activity, all of which he documents in his recently released book detailing the chain of events that led to him becoming a federally protected whistleblower.
Montaño commented that he wrote Los Alamos: Secret Colony, Hidden Truths, “so people can appreciate the Lab’s full impact and legacy, not just what institutional leaders want the public to remember. There are important events I document for posterity, which may otherwise be hidden or erased from memory, and I didn’t want that to happen.”
Jay Coghlan, NukeWatch director, said, “I am very proud of Chuck Montaño, especially since he’s a Nuke Watch Steering Committee member as well. We depend on people like him with the inside story to help keep the Lab safe for communities and workers alike. It’s gratifying to see that the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and its many member organizations appreciate his efforts.”
Mr. Montaño, a lifelong Santa Fe area resident, was employed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory for 32 years, until his forced retirement from the lab in 2010. He is also the former Director of Fraud and Special Audits for the Office of the New Mexico State Auditor.
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) is a network of three-dozen local, regional and national organizations representing the concerns of communities downwind and downstream from U.S. nuclear weapons production and radioactive waste disposal sites.
# # #
Chuck Montaño’s book Los Alamos: Secret Colony, Hidden Truths
is available at www.losalamosdiary.com
Nuclear Watch New Mexico Action Alert – Release of Revised Los Alamos Cleanup Agreement
Nuclear Watch New Mexico Action Alert
NM Environment Department Plans to Unveil Revised Los Alamos Cleanup Agreement
March 30, 2016, 1PM, Sandia Resort
Public Comment Is Invited
Los Alamos Cleanup At the Crossroads
NM Environment Department and officials from Los Alamos National Laboratory plan to roll out a draft of the revised Consent Order, which is the agreement for fence-to-fence cleanup of legacy Cold War waste from nuclear weapons production and research. The last compliance date of the original agreement was December 6, 2015, and although much investigation was completed, much more work is still needed.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico believes
- A new schedule is mostly what is needed
- Lack of budget cannot be an excuse for lack of cleanup
- Particular items to keep – meaningful public comment and a final date
But we suspect big changes and not all for the better protection of Northern NM.
Your voice will be important! Please join us!
Northern New Mexico Citizens’ Advisory Board Meeting
March 30, 2016
1:00 p.m. to 5:15 p.m.
Sandia Resort, Ballroom A
30 Rainbow Road
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87113
DRAFT AGENDA
Time Action Presenter
1:00 p.m. Call to Order Lee Bishop, DDFO
Welcome and Introductions Doug Sayre, Chair
Approval of Agenda
Approval of Minutes of January 27, 2016
1:20 p.m. Old Business
a. Written Reports – See Packet Enclosures (5 minutes)
b. Other items
1:30 p.m. New Business
1:35 p.m. Update from Deputy Designated Federal Officer(s)
Lee Bishop/Michael Gardipe
1:45 p.m. Presentation on Revisions to Consent Order,
Upon Opening of Public Comment Period
NMED Secretary Ryan Flynn
3:00 p.m. Break
3:20 p.m. Presentation Continues
4:00 p.m. Public Comment Period
4:15 p.m. Update on FY 17/18 EM Budget Genna Hackett
4:45 p.m. Consideration and Action on Draft Recommendation 2016-02, Doug Sayre
“FY 2018 Budget Priorities”
5:00 p.m. Wrap-up Comments from NNMCAB Members
a. Were your questions answered regarding the presentations?
b. Requests for future presentations or information
c. Proposed Recommendations
5:15 p.m. Adjourn Michael Gardipe
For more information:
This NNMCAB Agenda-
Click to access March_30_16_Draft_Agenda_R7.pdf
Los Alamos Cleanup At the Crossroads
New Cleanup Agreement Requires New Schedule and That Is About All
http://www.nukewatch.org/watchblog/?p=2204
Baseless Claims?
http://www.nukewatch.org/watchblog/?p=2186
Nuclear Watch NM Gives Notice of Intent to Sue Over Lack of Cleanup at the Los Alamos Lab
http://www.nukewatch.org/watchblog/?p=2177
NukeWatch Calls for Public Seats at the Table in LANL Cleanup Negotiations
http://www.nukewatch.org/watchblog/?p=2140
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.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico
903 W. Alameda, #325
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505.989.7342 – phone and fax
STAND AGAINST THE RUSH TO RE-OPEN AN UNSAFE WIPP
STAND AGAINST THE RUSH TO RE-OPEN AN UNSAFE WIPP
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that it intends to re-open the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in December 2016. The nation’s only deep geologic repository, located 26 miles east of Carlsbad, has been shut down since February 2014 because of two events – an underground fire and a radiation release.
DOE is in a rush to re-open WIPP even though the facility cannot meet the previous operational and safety standards, let alone more stringent requirements that are necessary to prevent future accidents. The WIPP underground remains contaminated, so operations have to be greatly changed, including workers being dressed in “ebola suits.” Ventilation will not be restored to the pre-2014 levels until 2021 or later – the new system is not designed and how much it will cost is unknown.
The transuranic (plutonium-contaminated) waste from manufacturing nuclear bombs can be in safe storage at the generator sites, so there is no emergency requiring the rush to re-open.
DOE is rushing to re-open WIPP and ALSO wants to expand WIPP to other missions that are prohibited by law, including:
- Greater-Than-Class C waste from dozens of commercial power plants;
- High-level waste from Hanford, WA;
- Commercial waste from West Valley, NY;
- Surplus weapons-grade plutonium from the Savannah River Site, SC.
DOE also is proceeding with finding a “volunteer” site for the nation’s high-level defense waste, and some officials in southeastern New Mexico say publicly that WIPP should be that repository!
The 1992 WIPP Land Withdrawal Act explicitly PROHIBITS all high-level waste, all spent nuclear fuel, and all commercial waste. But DOE wants to ignore the law!
Those prohibitions resulted from many New Mexicans demanding them!
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Contact Senators Udall and Heinrich (and other elected officials) and ask them to stop the rush to re-open an unsafe WIPP. Ask them to require DOE to drop the expansion proposals and commit that WIPP will not be considered for high-level waste. Ask them to have Congress reiterate that the WIPP law is not being changed to allow those expansions.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Southwest Research and Information Center, www.sric.org, 505-262-1862
Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping, contactus@cardnm.org, 505-242-5511
Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, www.nuclearactive.org, 505-986-1973
Nuclear Watch New Mexico, www.nukewatch.org, 505-989-7342
Here is a sample letter to use as-is or to modify. You can use the electronic message system at the Senators’ offices.
Senator Udall’s electronic message system: https://www.tomudall.senate.gov/?p=contact
Senator Heinrich’s electronic message system: https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/contact/write-martin
Senator Tom Udall Senator Martin Heinrich
531 Hart Senate Office Building 303 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator Udall and Senator Heinrich:
I am very concerned about the Department of Energy (DOE) rushing to re-open WIPP this year despite unresolved public and worker safety issues and because of the many proposals to expand WIPP, if it is re-opened.
The WIPP underground remains contaminated, so operations have to be greatly changed, including workers being dressed in “ebola suits.” Ventilation will not be restored to the pre-2014 levels until 2021 or later – the new system is not designed and how much it will cost is unknown.
The transuranic (plutonium-contaminated) waste from manufacturing nuclear bombs can be in safe storage at generator sites, so there’s no emergency requiring the rush to re-open.
DOE recently announced that it wants to expand WIPP for commercial Greater-than-Class C (GTCC) waste from nuclear reactors and for tons of weapons-grade plutonium. DOE also wants to have a defense high-level waste repository and some people want to “volunteer” WIPP!
There is time for my requests to be fulfilled. Please:
* Tell DOE to improve the ventilation and other safety requirements before WIPP re-opens
* Insist that DOE drop the expansion proposals
* Require DOE to affirm that WIPP will not be considered for the defense high-level waste repository
* Obtain additional congressional assurances that the WIPP law is not going to be changed to allow the proposed expansions.
WIPP is a public health and safety issue now and for many generations to come!
Thank you.
_______________________________________
Name
___________________________________________________________NM________________
Address City State Zip
Los Alamos Cleanup At the Crossroads: Treat All Los Alamos Lab Radioactive Wastes Consistently
Los Alamos Cleanup At the Crossroads:
Treat All Los Alamos Lab Radioactive Wastes Consistently
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s role and responsibility includes gathering information regarding the hazards to the public and workers posed by the management of transuranic (TRU) wastes at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), as well as the Department of Energy’s (DOE) plans to address those hazards. The Board will examine DOE’s actions taken or inadequacies addressed in the current safety policies of the various facilities that manage or store TRU wastes at LANL. The Board is also interested in understanding actions taken to improve TRU waste management at LANL after the improper handling and treatment of TRU wastes that resulted in a ruptured barrel that shut down the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
