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.

Plutonium Sampling at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Cost of RECA Chart

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.”

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

New & Updated

Recording of April 4 Santa Fe Town Hall – Overview of NNSA and EM’s National Security and Environmental Cleanup Priorities

Town Hall – Overview of NNSA and EM’s National Security and Environmental Cleanup Priorities

Anna Hansen, Santa Fe County Commission Chair, is moderating a town hall in collaboration with Jill Hruby, Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and Ike White, Senior Advisor for the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM). The town hall style event will feature a brief overview of NNSA and EM’s national security and environmental cleanup priorities and then will move into an expanded public question and answer period.

Posted by Nuclear Watch New Mexico on Monday, April 10, 2023

LANL plume cleanup halted due to water concerns

Milestones to meet in the coming year are to work on three monitoring wells and complete two reports, said Scott Kovac, Nuclear Watch New Mexico’s operations director. He called the effort inadequate for a large contaminated area discovered two decades ago.

“We’re going to have to do better than that,” Kovac said after the meeting. “We should be a lot farther along by now.”

Kovac also questioned why the report on the lab’s site-wide groundwater monitoring should be deemed a milestone. It’s something that must be done every year, so the lab’s parent agency shouldn’t get points for it, he said.

SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | March 31, 2023 santafenewmexican.com

State regulators’ order to halt injections of treated water into the sprawling chromium plume under Los Alamos National Laboratory will go into effect Saturday as scheduled, federal and state officials confirmed this week at an annual meeting to review cleanup of legacy waste.

Regulators say the technique of extracting contaminated water, treating it and pumping it back into the decades-old plume is not fixing or containing the problem but instead is stirring up the hexavalent chromium and pushing it both toward San Ildefonso Pueblo and deeper into the aquifer.

The U.S. Energy Department’s environmental managers at Los Alamos insist the pump-and-treat method is working to dilute the toxic chromium and prevent its spread but said at a Wednesday meeting they would cease injections on Friday.

“Right now, we don’t have another avenue for any of that extracted water, so it will effectively be turning off the system for the interim measure for the chromium plume treatment,” said Troy Thomson, environmental remediation program manager for N3B, the lab’s legacy waste cleanup contractor.

A state Environment Department manager reiterated the agency’s position that the injection wells were placed inside the plume rather than on the borders, causing the injected water to spread the contaminants outward.

START treaty: Russia stops sending nuclear arms info to US

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said: ‘There will be no notifications at all’ with Washington as the US also stops sharing data on its nuclear weapons with Moscow.

Aljazeera | March 30, 2023 aljazeera.com

Russia will no longer share detailed information on its nuclear weapons with the United States as outlined in the New START treaty, a senior official in Moscow has said, as Russia’s military began drills with its Yars intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers in Siberia while fighting in Ukraine rages and tension with the US mounts.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies on Wednesday that Moscow had halted all information exchanges with Washington after suspending its participation in the New START nuclear arms treaty last month.

Putin says Russia will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus

The U.S. said it would “monitor the implications” of Putin’s announcement.

“We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture nor any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said. “We remain committed to the collective defense of the NATO alliance.”

By The Associated Press – NPR | March 25, 2023 npr.org

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Russian Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev during a meeting in Moscow on Saturday. Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans on Saturday to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, a warning to the West as it steps up military support for Ukraine.

Putin said the move was triggered by Britain’s decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.

Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for use on the battlefield and have a short range and a low yield compared with much more powerful nuclear warheads fitted to long-range missiles. Russia plans to maintain control over those it sends to Belarus, and construction of storage facilities for them will be completed by July 1, Putin said.

He didn’t say how many nuclear weapons Russia would keep in Belarus. The U.S. government believes Russia has about 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons, which include bombs that can be carried by tactical aircraft, warheads for short-range missiles and artillery rounds.

CRITICAL EVENTS

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New Nuclear Media: Art, Films, Books & More

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