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
“Details of foreign country’s nuclear capabilities among documents FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago: report” “Nuclear secrets reportedly found at Mar-a-Lago are ‘gamechanger’, experts say – as it happened”
THE GUARDIAN: Report appears to confirm security officials’ worst fears about the nature of the material Trump refused to hand back
THE GUARDIAN, FOX NEWS | September 7, 2022 theguardian.com, foxnews.com
Federal agents seized the document during their search of Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Palm Beach mansion in Florida, last month, the Washington Post reported. It appears to confirm officials’ worst fears about the nature of the intelligence he should have returned to the National Archives.
Shelling at Ukrainian nuclear plant highlights danger ahead of UN report – Reuters
U.N. seeks security zone near damaged Zaporozhzhia nuclear plant
By Pavel Polityuk and Francois Murphy, Reuters | September 6, 2022 reuters.com
Federal agents seized the document during their search of Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Palm Beach mansion in Florida, last
KYIV/VIENNA, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Ukrainian forces shot down five Russian cruise missiles on Tuesday, most of them in the south, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, but he made no mention of a new military success in the east hinted at by officials earlier.
“This morning alone, five of six Russian X-101 missiles were downed,” Zelenskiy said in an evening address. “This is a costly loss for Russia, and it saves many Ukrainian lives. Four of these missiles were downed by the “South” district of the air command.”
Reuters was not able to independently verify Zelenskiy’s statement and there was no immediate response from Russia.
Though Ukrainian officials did not give specific details, several posts on social media from military bloggers and witnesses reported fighting around Balakliia, an eastern town of 27,000 people that lies between Kharkiv and Russian-held Izyum, a city with a major railway hub used by Moscow to supply its forces. One tweet by a Zelenskiy adviser spoke of “great news” coming from the president on the operation in Kharkiv region.
One Hundred and Fifteen NGOs and Individuals Ask for LANL SWEIS Comment Extension; LANL Virtual Scoping Meetings on September 13th and 14
August 31, 2022
This week 63 non-governmental organizations and 52 individuals requested that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grant a two-month extension of time to provide informed public comments about the scope of the Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for Continued Operations of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL SWEIS). On August 19th, DOE announced in its Notice of Intent to Prepare a Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for the Los Alamos National Laboratory a 45-day comment period. Currently, comments are due on Monday, October 3rd, 2022. https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/nnsa-nepa-reading-room
In their August 30th letter, the groups and individuals asked that the DOE Secretary Granholm and her staff extend the comment period to Monday, December 5, 2022. No response has yet been received. LANL SWEIS 2022 Scoping Extension Request 8-25-22
The NGOs and individuals justified their extension request by noting, among other items, that the last LANL SWEIS was finalized in 2008 – 14 years ago. Generally DOE conducts a SWEIS every 10 years. DOE proposes that this LANL SWEIS will cover “approximately the next 15 years” of operations, or to approximately 2038 and beyond.
Extension Requested For Scoping Comments Deadline For LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement
Dozens of environmental groups, non-government organizations and individuals have signed a request to the Department of Energy for a two-month extension of the Oct. 3 comment deadline for scoping comments on a Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for continued operations of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
BY MAIRE O’NEILL, Los Alamos Reporter | August 31, 2022 losalamosreporter.com
A letter sent Tuesday states that the current comment period is simply not enough time for the public to make meaningful comments on the scope of a proposal as large, complex and technical as the LANL SWEIS. It is addressed to Sec. of Energy Jennifer Granholm, Under Secretary for Nuclear Security Jill Hruby, DOE/NNSA Los Alamos Field Office Manager Ted Wyka and NNSA’s NEPA Compliance Officer at LANL Kristen Dors. The top two signatories are Joni Arends of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and Scott Kovac of Nuclear Watch New Mexico.
“The scope of the LANL SWEIS is of great national importance because it examines the environmental impacts associated with expanded plutonium pit production and cleanup at LANL,” the letter reads. “The 2008 LANL SWEIS is a formidable document, with 1942 pages, not counting the 144-page Summary and the 1207-page Comment Response Document. That’s a total of 3293 pages. This gives an idea of the amount of information analyses that are involved in preparing informed public scoping comments and why more time is needed.”
The Future of Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament is the Treaty PROHIBITING Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)
The Future of Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament is in Danger is the Treaty PROHIBITING Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)
After a month of negotiations, the tenth review conference (RevCon) of the parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) concluded on August 26 without a consensus final document,A “Council of Councils” Global Memo titled, “The Future of Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament Is in Danger” highlights the analysis of five experts on analyze the “failure after a month of negotiations of the tenth review conference (RevCon) of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) concluding on August 26 without a consensus final document, raising concerns about weakening efforts to promote nuclear nonproliferation, disarmament, and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons recently published an article along the same lines titled, “NPT Review Conference fails to address current security environment.” The final draft outcome document had already been significantly weakened throughout the negotiations, however Russia still refused to accept the final version and the conference ended without an agreement. ICAN: “Although the NPT Review Conference failed, there was a success this year in June. At the First Meeting of States Parties, TPNW states parties committed to the Vienna Action Plan, 50 concrete steps to advance disarmament, help victims of nuclear use and testing, commit to inclusion and progressive steps on gender and disarmament.”
Robin Lloyd of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom asks the leading questions, “How can the US consider signing the draft preamble while the House and Senate are finalizing the National Defense Authorization Act which calls for the modernization of our nuclear arsenal? How can our government even take part in this Conference while it is seeking funding for a renewed nuclear edifice of destruction including Modernized Strategic Delivery Systems and Refurbished Nuclear Warheads? Over the next decade, the United States plans to spend $494 billion on its nuclear forces, or about $50 billion a year, according to a 2019 Congressional Budget Office report. Trillions of dollars for submarines and bombers and buried nuclear missiles. Things they are committing to not use. Please, does this make sense?”
Faced with an unacceptable dangerous global situation, the TPNW will do what the NPT failed to: adopt a credible plan to advance disarmament, help victims of nuclear use and testing, and condemn any and all threats to use nuclear weapons.
The NPT is in crisis, but the TPNW is already starting to carry out its role of implementing the nuclear disarmament obligations of the NPT. All other NPT states parties that have failed to make progress during the NPT Review Conference should join this work too.
‘We’re losing our people’: COVID ravaged Indigenous tribes in New Mexico. Did uranium mining set the stage?
Today, hundreds of mines lie abandoned across New Mexico’s Indigenous lands. So do scores of eroding radioactive landfills meant to bury uranium mine waste.
By Eli Cahan, Capital & Main | August 26, 2022 usatoday.com
As a young girl, Arlene Juanico would rush to gather the laundry before the explosions started.
When the alarms sounded, Juanico would hustle to grab the clean garments off the clothesline before she was enveloped by dust clouds. But Juanico’s little legs usually couldn’t get her back to shelter in time.
That’s when the yellow-flecked dust – emerging from detonations in the sacred mesa the Laguna tribe knows as Squirrel Mountain – would catch up to her. That’s when it would enter Juanico’s throat, burrowing deep into her lungs.
It’s the same dust she would confront when, as an adult, she worked for the Anaconda Copper Co.
And it’s the dust that would persist in her lungs, kidneys and bones. There, hidden in the dark recesses of her chest, the particles lay until one day decades later a CT scan would show Juanico and people like her why they hadn’t been able to take a full breath in decades. They’d get a similar diagnosis – idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis – one mangled lung at a time.
As such, the dangers of one of the largest uranium mines in American history didn’t abate when the dust clouds dissipated.
