Source/Reference Documents
Map Spreadsheet Examples 2021-2023
Below are examples of a spreadsheets created in Intellus, which is the environmental database at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The requests were for all soil and groundwater samples taken in, under, and around the Lab in 2021, 2022, and 2023. The spreadsheets were then sorted by “Report Result” (Column ‘F’), which lists the plutonium found in samples in descending order. It shows the highest sample for each year at top of the column.
Looking at the 2021 spreadsheet, there were 2043 samples analyzed for plutonium taken in 2021. There are approximately 100 detects including the high sample of 10100 pCi/g. Please read Dr. Ketterer’s report for a discussion of the ‘detects’ and ‘non-detects.’
Notice the latitude and longitude for each sample (columns ‘O’ and ‘P’). We used these coordinates to create the maps.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
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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
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Follow the Money!
Map of “Nuclear New Mexico”
In 1985, US President Ronald Reagan and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
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
New & Updated
National Nuclear Security Administration: New Assessments of Major Projects from the Government Accountability Office
National Nuclear Security Administration: Assessments of Major Projects
The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to invest over $30 billion in its major projects to modernize the research and production infrastructure supporting the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile. This is our first biennial assessment of NNSA’s major projects.
As of March 2023, NNSA’s major projects collectively exceeded their cost estimates by over $2 billion. They also surpassed their collective schedules by almost 10 years. Cost growth and schedule delays had multiple causes, such as lower levels of worker productivity than planned.
The Department of Energy has been on the Government Accountability Office’s “High Risk List” for project mismanagement since 1991. A January 2023 GAO report says it all: NNSA Does Not Have a Comprehensive Schedule or Cost Estimate for Pit Production Capability. Congress has made its ongoing concern over the lack of pit aging studies explicit in legislation. The FY 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act enacted the following provision:
“Pit and Plutonium Aging.-There is concern with the apparent lack of focus on advancing knowledge regarding pit and plutonium aging since the JASONs conducted its first study in 2006. Given the future needs of the nation’s nuclear deterrent, a robust program of research and experimentation is needed. Therefore, NNSA is directed to develop a comprehensive, integrated ten-year research program for pit and plutonium aging that represents a consensus program among the national laboratories and federal sponsors. Such a plan shall include estimated cost of ongoing research, new or upgraded capability needs, and key near-, mid-, and long-range milestones. The plan shall be submitted to the Committees on Appropriations of both Houses of Congress not later than 180 days after enactment of this Act.”
As far as is publicly known no such plan has been submitted to Congress despite its statutory requirement. That said, a ten year plan to have plutonium pit aging studies is not sufficient to begin with when uncertainty over pit aging is being used as the rationale for an aggressive plutonium pit production program costing at least $60 billion over the next thirty years. The recent GAO report states, “…Six projects in the design phase are implementing significant changes that may increase their cost and schedule beyond NNSA’s preliminary estimates. These include a project to modify existing plutonium processing facilities at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.”
Furthermore, the entire U.S. $2 Trillion “Modernization” plan includes new intercontinental ballistic missiles, new cruise missiles, heavy stealth bombers and
submarines, which entails rebuilding warheads with new military capabilities plus completely new-design nuclear weapons. This is not just for “deterrence” but instead for nuclear warfighting capabilities. No production of plutonium pits is scheduled to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear stockpile; instead it is for new-design nuclear weapons. The US is inspiring a new arms race with nuclear weapons forever.
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Oppenheimer Author Endorses Norton Bill Calling for the US to sign Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
“My book chronicles the birth of the nuclear age. Since the first nuclear testing and bombing in 1945, the man-made nuclear danger has continually increased. Now, today’s 13,000 atomic weapons are unthinkably destructive, indiscriminate, climate-altering devices that can be unleashed by design, by sabotage, or by accident. Therefore, I strongly endorse Congresswoman Norton’s Nuclear Abolition and Conversion Act, H.R. 2775…”
NUCLEAR BAN US | August 17, 2023 nuclearban.us
New York (August 16, 2023) – Kai Bird, co-author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on which Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer movie is based, issued the following statement endorsing a bill by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), the Nuclear Abolition and Conversion Act, H.R. 2775
Oppenheimer’s Legacy: South Carolina at the Center of the New Nuclear Arms Race 8/16/23
Learn about the role of the U.S. Department of Energy – and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina particular – in production of plutonium “pits” for new nuclear weapons as a key part of the new nuclear arms race from this August 16, 2023 event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK9YOFoT6r0
Downwinders are Finally Close to Getting Justice
“Thanks to the bipartisan efforts of U.S. Sens. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the Senate recently passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act making Trinity Downwinders, and communities in three other western states, eligible for recognition and compensation by the federal government. It is now up to congressional leaders to meet in conference and negotiate a final version of the bill.”
BY RAÚL TORREZ, NEW MEXICO ATTORNEY GENERAL, ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL | August 13, 2023 abqjournal-nm.newsmemory.com
Of all the chores I had to do during summer visits to my grandmother Savina’s home in southern New Mexico, hauling water out of the cistern was my least favorite.
As a city kid, I was always puzzled by the fact that she still insisted on using rainwater for cooking and cleaning, even after my family had upgraded her house with indoor plumbing. But I knew better than to question the wisdom of a woman who had managed to lift her family out of rural poverty in the span of a single generation and conceded that maybe the tortillas she cooked on her wood-burning stove did taste better with fresh rainwater. It certainly never occurred to her that the rainwater in that cistern, along with most of the locally harvested food she used to sustain her large family, was likely contaminated as a result of the detonation of the world’s first nuclear weapon, which occurred 72 miles west of Savina’s home on July 16, 1945.
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Photos from Japan Pilgrimage of Peace
Image Credit: The Archdiocese of Seattle Website (Daily Digests), Leslie M. Radigan & Archdiocese of Santa Fe Official Facebook Page, and Jay Coghlan of NukeWatch New Mexico.
“We are here to see what we can do to advocate for peace and share the gospel,” said AB Etienne. We are here “to invite people to realize that we can have peace by growing relationships with our neighbors and communities. We need to do that as people before we can do so as nations.”
Commemoration Of 1945 Bombing Of Nagasaki, Japan Held Wednesday At Ashley Pond Park
An informal gathering was held from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday at Ashley Pond Park to recognize the harm of the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan 78 years ago. Participants included representatives of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Veterans for Peace and Nonviolent Santa Fe, who carried posters and banners and meditated in a shelter at the south side of the park.
BY MAIRE O’NEILL, LOS ALAMOS REPORTER | August 10, 2023 losalamosreporter.com
U.S. And Japanese Clergy Enter Into Partnership To Achieve A ‘World Without Nuclear Weapons’
BY KELSEY D. ATHERTON | August 9, 2023 – 78th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing, Archbishop’s House of Nagasaki, Japan, 2023 losalamosreporter.com
On the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we, the bishops of four Catholic arch/dioceses in areas impacted by nuclear weapons, declare that we will begin working together to achieve a “world without nuclear weapons.” We urge that there be concrete progress made by August 2025, the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings.
In the spirit and teaching of Pope Francis, we recognize that even the possession of nuclear weapons is immoral.
CRITICAL EVENTS
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New Nuclear Media: Art, Films, Books & More
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