Plutonium Sampling at Los Alamos National Laboratory
Cost of RECA Chart
In 1985, US President Ronald Reagan and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
New & Updated
Appeal Targets Permit Change for US Nuclear Repository
By Associated Press | Thursday, January 17th, 2019 at 12:33pm
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Watchdog groups are appealing a recent permit change approval by New Mexico regulators that could ultimately allow for more waste to be placed at the U.S. government’s only underground nuclear waste repository.
The approval by the state Environment Department came in the final days of former Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration. The change was requested earlier by the U.S. Energy Department and the contractor that operates the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
The permit modification changes the way the volume of waste is calculated. Specifically, it excludes the empty space inside waste packaging containers.
The Southwest Research and Information Center and Nuclear Watch New Mexico argue the modification is unlawful.
Critics also are concerned the change could be a first step in expanding the repository’s mission to hold other kinds of waste.
Smith Statement on Trump Missile Defense Review
Washington, DC – Today, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) released the following statement about the Trump administration’s Missile Defense Review:
“The missile defense policy of the United States must follow some key principles.”
“First, it is essential that we ensure we are spending money on programs that are reliable and rigorously tested before they are deployed. We need to know that we are putting scarce taxpayer dollars to good use, for example improving reliability of the current system, rather than rushing to buy and deploy unproven missile defense systems. It is common sense to insist on this principle when it comes to programs that protect the American people and our allies, particularly in the context of the growing North Korea threat.
“Second, we must avoid missile defense policies that will fuel a nuclear arms race. Strategic stability is an essential component of U.S. national security, and it does not serve our long-term interest to take steps that incentivize Russia and China to increase the number and capability of their nuclear weapons.
“While it is essential that we continue investing in proven missile defense efforts, I am concerned that this missile defense review could lead to greater investment in areas that do not follow these principles, such as a space-based interceptor layer that has been studied repeatedly and found to be technologically challenging and prohibitively expensive.
“Moreover, we must consider missile defense and effective arms control policy as part of our deterrence capabilities. I am gravely concerned about President Trump’s broader strategy to withdraw us from international arms control agreements, dismiss allies, and expand the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense policy, which could further siphon funding from much-needed budget priorities and exacerbate a new nuclear arms race.”
armscontrol.org | January 17th, 2019
The Trump administration’s long-awaited Missile Defense Review, which was released today, proposes a significant and costly expansion of the role and scope of U.S. missile defenses that is likely to exacerbate Russian and Chinese concerns about the threat to their strategic nuclear deterrents, undermine strategic stability, and further complicate the prospects for additional nuclear arms reductions.
Of particular concern was President Donald Trump’s statement during his remarks at the Pentagon that the goal of U.S. missile defenses is to “ensure we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, anytime, anyplace.” This would be a costly, unachievable, and destabilizing departure from longstanding policy and contradicts the text of the review, which limits U.S. homeland missiles defense to their traditional role of defending against limited attacks from North Korea or Iran. Continue reading
NukeWatch Joins Suit To Stop WIPP Expansion
NukeWatch Joins Suit To Stop WIPP Expansion
On January 17, 2019, Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) and Nuclear Watch New Mexico (NWNM) filed an appeal in the New Mexico Court of Appeals to overturn the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) approval of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Disposal Volume permit modification, which was issued on December 21, 2018.
The modification would allow expansion of WIPP’s capacity by approximately 30 percent and was issued over the repeated opposition of many New Mexico organizations.
Permit Changes at WIPP Face Challenges
By Mark Oswald | Journal Staff Writer
abqjournal.com | Sunday, January 13th, 2019 at 12:01am
U.S. Sen. Tom Udall is encouraging Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s new administration to reconsider a state government decision made just before she took office Jan. 1 that changes how radioactive waste volume is measured at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, in effect allowing more waste to placed in the underground repository near Carlsbad.
Udall said last week that limits on how much waste WIPP can hold were critical to federal-state negotiations that led to WIPP’s creation “and were a major reason New Mexico agreed to this mission in the first place.”
“I am encouraging the new administration to take a hard look at this action, and hopeful that it will pause and reconsider this last-minute change that has major ramifications for our state,” the senator said in an email statement.
The controversial state permit modification for WIPP, approved by then-New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Butch Tongate on Dec. 21, changes the way waste volume is calculated to exclude empty space inside waste packaging. With the alteration, WIPP becomes only about a third full instead of 50 percent full.
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