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
Environment Department Negotiates Settlement Agreement For Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Renewal Permit
“Communities in New Mexico and around the U.S. benefit from the clean-up of legacy waste and its disposal at WIPP,” said NMED Cabinet Secretary James Kenney. “The new permit conditions affirm New Mexico’s authority and position that all roads lead from WIPP – we are no longer the last stop for clean-up but the driving force in that process that begins here.”
LOS ALMOS REPORTER | July 2, 2023 losalamosreporter.com
New Mexico Environment Departement NEWS RELEASE
The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED), in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Salado Isolation Mining Contractors LLC (SIMCO), successfully negotiated a settlement agreement last week with multiple parties that invited a hearing and that opposed the draft 10-year renewal permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) located in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
The agreement includes modified conditions that provide greater regulatory oversight, improve safeguards, and authorize disposal of waste in two new underground panels over the next ten-year permit term. The modified conditions also prioritize legacy waste from cleanup activities, including from Los Alamos National Laboratory.
NEW YORK TIMES: The Terror of Threes in the Heavens and on Earth
The tripolar nuclear age could put human survival at risk. But some experts cite a number of three-body lessons from nature — starting with Newton’s — that illuminate the issue and suggest possible ways forward.
By William J. Broad, THE NEW YORK TIMES | June 26, 2023 nytimes.com
Physicists have long explored how phenomena in groups of three can sow chaos. A new three-body problem, they warn, could lead to not only global races for new armaments but also thermonuclear war. . If achieved, the rise would represent a fivefold increase from the “minimum deterrent” that Beijing possessed for more than a half-century and would make it a nuclear peer of Moscow and Washington.
Dr. Newman calls the tripolar state “much less resilient” than the bipolar standoff. Even so, three-body theorists see a number of ways that the unthinkable might be avoided.
For instance, Dr. Krepinevich, in a Foreign Affairs article last year, argued that Moscow could fade into economic and strategic insignificance, leaving a strong Beijing and Washington to “navigate their way to a new bipolar equilibrium.” The armed revolt over the weekend in Russia drives home not only Moscow’s weakness but the threat of new instability in an atomic superpower.
On a different note, Siegfried S. Hecker , a former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico, argued that Washington should aim to deal with the rival superpowers as separate entities.
“I don’t see Russia and China getting together” on atomic strategies, he said. “I see it as two bipolars.” As the Ukraine war rages and Washington has little interaction with Moscow…
Russia mercenary threat revives concern over nuclear arsenal security
“…the safety of these weapons is a persistent worry for Washington. U.S. intelligence agencies said in their 2023 Annual Threat assessment that ‘Russia’s nuclear material security … remains a concern despite improvements to material protection, control, and accounting at Russia’s nuclear sites since the 1990s.'”
JAPAN TIMES | June 25, 2023 japantimes.co.jp
The Wagner mercenary group’s march on Moscow has revived an old fear in Washington: What happens to Russia’s nuclear stockpile in the event of domestic upheaval?
An agreement on Saturday by Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to order his fighters back to their camps quelled immediate worries of major conflict inside Russia. But the episode signaled that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grasp on power is weakening.
Russia thermonuclear bomb scientist dies, Putin boosts nuke force
Grigory Klinishov, who was in his 90s, has reportedly died by suicide in Moscow.
ALJAZEERA | June 22, 2023 aljazeera.com
Russian nuclear physicist Grigory Klinishov, one of the creators of the Soviet Union’s first two-stage thermonuclear bombs, has been found dead in Moscow apparently by suicide, Russia’s state news agencies have reported.
Klinishov, who was in his early 90s, was reported to have died on June 17. A suicide note was found next to his body at an apartment residence in central Moscow, Russia’s TASS news agency reported on Wednesday.
(ABC NEWS) Plan to discharge water into Hudson River from closed nuclear plant sparks uproar; (Spectrum News 1) Legislature approves bill to prohibit disposal of nuclear wastewater in Hudson River
The Indian Point nuclear plant along the Hudson River is at the center of a controversy two years after it was shut down
ABC NEWS – By MICHAEL HILL Associated Press | June 20, 2023 abcnews.go.com
The latest flashpoint revolves around plans to release 1.3 million gallons of water with traces of radioactive tritium into the river as part of the plant’s decommissioning.
Legislature approves bill to prohibit disposal of nuclear wastewater in Hudson River
SPECTRUM NEWS 1, BY JOHN CAMERA HUDSON VALLEY | June 20, 2023 spectrumlocalnews.com
Santosh Nandabalan, a senior organizer for the environmental group Food & Water Watch, said new legislation that would halt the dumping of all radiological wastewater into the Hudson River is critical to preserving one of the state’s most important ecological features.
“It is a huge threat not only to that water, but to the local communities along the river,” he said. “Then, there’s a vibrant economy that’s linked to this river, which would take a massive hit if that dumping went forward.”
The bill is a response to a plan by Holtec that would dispose of about 300,000 gallons of wastewater into the Hudson in September…
“The Doomsday Machine”: Confessions of Daniel Ellsberg, Former Nuclear War Planner
Daniel Ellsberg was best known for leaking the Pentagon Papers, but he was also a lifelong anti-nuclear activist, stemming from his time working as a nuclear planner for the U.S. government. In December 2017, he joined us to discuss his memoir, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. “This was an actual war plan for how we would use the existing weapons,” he noted, “many of which I had seen already that time.”
Interview from Democracy Now | June 20, 2023 democracynow.org
VIDEO: Reports number of stockpiles of nuclear warheads steadily increasing
ABC NEWS: Dan Smith says the Ukraine War has propelled the resurgence of nuclear threats, despite a general decline over the past 35 years.
CRITICAL EVENTS
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New Nuclear Media: Art, Films, Books & More
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