Archives: Press Releases

Plaintiffs Tour the Savannah River Site’s Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Core Plant –

Sophia Meryn

Most Expensive Building in U.S. History is Key to New Nuclear Arms Race

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, April 22, 2026

Contact: Tom Clements, Director, SRS Watch, 803-240-7268 | Email
Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email
Shelby Cohen, Comms Manager, SC Env. Law Project, 864.414.7726 | Email

Columbia, SC – On April 21, plaintiffs Savannah River Site Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Tri-Valley CAREs toured the plutonium “pit” bomb core production plant at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, South Carolina. They were accompanied by their attorney from the South Carolina Environmental Law Project and a science consultant from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Plutonium pits are the core components of all U.S. nuclear weapons. The NNSA is seeking to expand production to at least 30 plutonium pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and at least 50 pits per year at SRS, which has never previously produced pits. NNSA pushed forward with the project without required public review, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Plaintiffs sued in federal court in Columbia, SC and won, requiring the NNSA to complete a nationwide programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS), with public hearings to be held this May (listed below). The court-approved settlement agreement also required an inspection of the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility by plaintiffs to ensure that no production begins before the completion of the final PEIS and simultaneous Record of Decision, which NNSA now says is expected in early 2027. NNSA officials also informed plaintiffs that 90% design and “rebaselined” costs will not be completed until September 2026, which means that once again Congress will be appropriating taxpayers’ money without knowing full costs.

The SRS pit plant will be the most expensive buildings ever built in the USA, with a current NNSA estimate of up to $30 billion even before all total costs are known (includes at least $5 billion in sunk costs for SRS’ failed MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility being “repurposed” to pit production). The agency’s recent budget request for FY 2027 (pp 17-19) reveals an 87% jump in combined pit production funding for LANL and SRS, averaging $5 billion for each of the next six years.

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Los Alamos Lab Banking on Plutonium “Pit” Production and New-Design Nuclear Warheads But Fights Against Cleanup

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, April 7, 2026

Contact: Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email
Sophie Stroud, 505.231.9736 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – The Department of Energy (DOE) has released additional details for the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s fiscal year 2027 budget. Earlier budget documents showed an 83% increase in funding for plutonium “pit” bomb core production, bringing it to $2.4 billion in FY 2027. An average of $2.3 billion will be spent in each of the following five years, for a total of $14 billion over six years. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has directed the Lab to double pit production to at least 60 pits per year, making it more and more a nuclear weapons production site. However, no future pit production is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, it is all for new-design nuclear weapons for the new nuclear arms race.

As a direct case in point, a newly released DOE budget document demonstrates that LANL will be funded $478 million in FY 2027 for the U.S.’ first completely new-design nuclear warhead since the Cold War, the submarine-launched W93. This is despite the recent completion of life extension programs for the U.S.’ two existing sub-launched warheads (the W76 and W88) that gave them new military capabilities, costing around $12 billion dollars. Nevertheless, the W93 program is moving forward, largely because of lobbying by the United Kingdom.

As LANL becomes more and more a nuclear weapons production site, non-weapons “Science” is being cut nearly in half ($84.7 million in FY 2026 to $43 million in FY 2027). Nonproliferation programs are cut from $377 million in FY 2026 to $345 million in FY 2027. All funding for renewable energy research has been eliminated, with the exception of $5.5 million for geothermal.

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Trump Accelerates New Nuclear Warhead Production

Sophia Meryn

Nearly Doubles Funding for Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Core Production

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, April 6, 2026

Contact: Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email
Sophie Stroud, 505.231.9736 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – The Trump Administration has released military budget numbers for the federal fiscal year 2027 (which begins October 1, 2026). This still current fiscal year 2026 is already a record breaker for military spending at one trillion dollars. Trump now proposes nearly $1.5 trillion in military spending in FY 2027, of which $1.1 trillion is base funding for the Department of War and an additional $350 million is through so-called budget reconciliation. On top of all this, Trump will likely seek $200 billion in supplementary appropriations for the war in Iran, for a potential total of $1.7 trillion in military spending in FY 2027 (a 70% increase above FY 2026). At the same time, there is a 10% across-the-board cut to non-military spending. Much of the remaining discretionary funding for education, wildfire protection, environmental regulations, health care, etc., will be constrained by a focus on border control and immigration enforcement.

Trump proposes $53.9 billion for the Department of Energy (DOE) in FY 2027. Sixty-one per cent ($32.8 billion) is for its semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). DOE’s Office of Science is gutted by $1.1 billion which “eliminates funding for climate change and Green New Scam research.” DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is eliminated. Nationwide cleanup of legacy Cold War radioactive and toxic wastes at DOE sites is cut by $386 million to $8.2 billion ($3 billion of which is reserved for the Hanford Site; other site-specific cleanup budget numbers are still not yet available).

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Final Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement

Sophia Meryn

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Future Path for the Lab:

Radically Expanded Nuclear Weapons Production

“Defers” Comprehensive Cleanup Until Plutonium “Pit” Production is Done

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, March 25, 2026

Contact: Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – Today the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), released its final Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for Continued Operation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. This is eighteen years after the last site-wide EIS, during which time the Lab has been increasingly transformed into a nuclear weapons production site for the new global nuclear arms race. As the final SWEIS’ accompanying Record of Decision puts it, “NNSA has decided to fully implement the Expanded Operations Alternative.” Final LANL SWEIS ROD, page 5.

The final LANL SWEIS also states “At this time, MDA C will be deferred until no longer associated with active facility operations.” Final LANL SWEIS, page N-41. Material Disposal Area C is an old radioactive and toxic waste dump, inactive since 1974. Not mentioned is the fact that the New Mexico Environment Department has issued a draft order mandating comprehensive cleanup at Area C, which Nuclear Watch New Mexico strongly supports and DOE and LANL bitterly oppose. The reason DOE and LANL now claim that Area C is “associated with active facility operations” is because it is located within a few hundred yards of PF-4, LANL’s production facility for plutonium “pit” bomb cores. This strongly implies that the Lab will never be comprehensively cleaned up until LANL’s nuclear weapons production mission is over, which in effect means never. Further, LANL still hasn’t documented the extent of the massive groundwater contamination that it has caused.

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Feds Give LANL “Very Good” in Accelerating Nuclear Arms Race; “Pit” Bomb Core Production Scheduled Through 2050 — Public Review of NNSA Programs Is Being Gutted

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, March 6, 2026

Contact: Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email
Sophie Stroud, 505.231.9736 | Email

“Rationality will not save us… this is very important: at the end we lucked out.  It was luck that prevented nuclear war.” Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary, “Lessons Learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis”

Santa Fe, NM – The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has posted its annual Performance Evaluation Reports for FY 2025. In 2012 Nuclear Watch New Mexico had to sue the NNSA for these unclassified reports on contractors growing rich at taxpayers’ expense. The NNSA and/or its parent Department of Energy have been on the Government Accountability Office’s “High Risk List” for project mismanagement and waste of taxpayers’ dollars ever since 1990. According to a recent report, the NNSA currently has $4.8 billion in cost overruns for major construction projects (likely an underestimate), which represents a significant decline in performance since the GAO’s last assessment in 2023. In three years, cumulative schedule delays for NNSA’s construction projects increased from 9 years to 30 years, attributable to poor contractor project management, poor vendor/subcontractor performance, and general inflationary costs.

In 2019 the NNSA began restricting access to its Performance Evaluation Reports again, so Nuclear Watch New Mexico sued again in 2022. This time we compelled NNSA to post the Reports in an online Freedom of Information Act Reading Room. These Performance Evaluation Reports provide important insights into all of NNSA’s eight active nuclear weapons research and production sites.

In its latest Performance Evaluation Report for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the NNSA graded the Lab’s expanding nuclear weapons programs as “Very Good.” At the same time, NNSA praised LANL for:

“… collaborat[ing] with stakeholders across the NSE [“National Security Enterprise”] to develop a programmatic baseline schedule supporting the pit production mission through FY 2050. This represents… a significant advancement in the planning for the pit mission at LANL and the national security needs of the United States.”

Nuclear Watch New Mexico argues that the true national security needs of not only the United States, but the entire world as well, is to avoid a staggering new nuclear arms race. The world’s last arms control treaty expired a few weeks ago and now war is raging across the Middle East over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. A Review Conference of the 1970 NonProliferation Treaty, to which 191 countries are State Parties, is scheduled to begin in late April. However, it is widely assumed that it will utterly fail for the third consecutive time to make any progress whatsoever toward nuclear disarmament. The U.S. should be leading by example toward universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament as mandated by the NPT, instead of, in reality, acting diametrically opposed to it through its $2 trillion “modernization” program to keep nuclear weapons forever.

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The Future of Los Alamos Lab: More Nuclear Weapons or Cleanup? New Mexico Environment Department Issues Corrective Action Order

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, February 11, 2026

Contact: Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email
Scott Kovac, 505.316.4148 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – In its own words, “The New Mexico Environment Department [NMED] issued several actions today to hold the U.S. Department of Energy accountable for failing to prioritize the cleanup of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s “legacy waste” for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.”

Amongst these actions is an Administrative Compliance Order designed to hasten cleanup of an old radioactive and toxic waste dump that should be the model for Lab cleanup. Nuclear Watch New Mexico strongly supports NMED’s aggressive efforts to compel comprehensive cleanup given Department of Energy obstruction.

This Compliance Order comes at a historically significant time. On February 5 the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expired, leaving the world without any arms control for the first time since the middle 1970s. The following day the Trump Administration accused China of conducting a small nuclear weapons test in 2020, possibly opening the door for matching tests by the United States.

NMED’s Compliance Order comes as LANL’s nuclear weapons production programs are radically expanding for the new nuclear arms race. The directors of the nuclear weapons laboratories, including LANL’s Thom Mason, are openly talking about seizing the opportunity provided by the Trump Administration’s deregulation of nuclear safety regulations to accelerate nuclear warhead production.

As background, in September 2023 NMED released a groundbreaking draft Order mandating the excavation and cleanup of an estimated 198,000 cubic meters of radioactive and toxic wastes at Material Disposal Area C, an old unlined dump that last received wastes in 1974. However, in a legalistic maneuver to evade real cleanup, DOE unilaterally declared that Area C:

“…is associated with active Facility operations and will be Deferred from further corrective action under [NMED’s] Consent Order until it is no longer associated with active Facility operations.”

The rationale of DOE’s semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), is that Area C is within a few hundred yards of the Lab’s main facility for plutonium “pit” bomb core production. LANL is prioritizing that production above everything else while cutting cleanup and nonproliferation programs and completely eliminating renewable energy research. DOE’s and NNSA’s unilateral deferment of Area C until it “is no longer associated with active Facility operations” in effect means that it will never be cleaned up. No future plutonium pit production is to maintain the safety and reliability of the U.S.’ existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, it is all for new design nuclear weapons for the new arms race that the NNSA intends to produce until at least 2050. Further, new-design nuclear weapons could prompt the United States to resume full-scale testing, which would have disastrous international proliferation consequences.

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Los Alamos Lab: More Nuclear Weapons or Cleanup?

Sophia Meryn

The Department of Energy “Defers” Comprehensive Cleanup Until Plutonium Pit Production Is Done

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, December 11, 2025

Contact: Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email

Contact: Scott Kovac, 505.316.4148 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – Nuclear Watch New Mexico has released its new fact sheet The Future of Los Alamos Lab: More Nuclear Weapons or Cleanup? It documents the following:

In September 2023 the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) issued a groundbreaking draft Order to excavate and comprehensively clean up an estimated 198,000 cubic meters of radioactive and toxic wastes at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL’s) “Area C” waste dump. The Lab and the Department of Energy (DOE) are adamantly against comprehensive cleanup. In this particular case, their unyielding opposition is amplified by fear of how Area C cleanup could impact LANL’s primary mission of plutonium “pit” bomb core production for new-design nuclear weapons. Instead, they want to “cap and cover” the wastes, leaving them permanently buried in unlined pit and trenches as a perpetual threat to groundwater.

Area C last received radioactive and toxic wastes in 1974. But in a legal maneuver to evade real cleanup, in June 2025 DOE unilaterally declared that the old waste dump:

“is associated with active Facility operations and will be Deferred from further corrective action under [NMED’s] Consent Order until it is no longer associated with active Facility operations.”

Area C is within a few hundred yards of LANL’s plutonium pit production facility. DOE’s unilateral deferral of Area C until it “is no longer associated with active Facility operations” in effect means that it will never be cleaned up. DOE plans to produce new plutonium pit bomb cores for new design nuclear weapons until at least 2050.

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Department of Energy Seeks to Eliminate Radiation Protections Requiring Controls “As Low As Reasonably Achievable”

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, November 21, 2025

Contact: Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – An internal Department of Energy (DOE) memorandum eliminates worker and public radiation protection rules known “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” (ALARA). This fundamental departure from decades of accepted health physics practices is being promoted by senior DOE political appointees with little background in health or radiation control. It is marked as “URGENCY: High” under the auspices of the DOE Deputy Secretary, the Under Secretary for Science, and the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. The memorandum awaits the final signature of DOE Secretary Chris Wright.

The memo’s stated goal is to:

“…remove the ALARA principle from all DOE directives and regulations, including DOE Order 458.1, Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment, NE [Office of Nuclear Energy] Order 458.1, Radiation Protection of the Public, and, upon completion of the rulemaking process, 10 CFR [Code of Federal Regulations] 835, Occupational Radiation Protection.” [1]

It follows the playbook of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which called for:

“Set[ting] clear radiation exposure and protection standards by eliminating ALARA (“as low as reasonably achievable”) as a regulatory principle and setting clear standards according to radiological risk and dose rather than arbitrary objectives.” [2]

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Lab Chromium Contamination Confirmed on San Ildefonso Pueblo Land

Sophia Meryn

Comprehensive Cleanup Needed Instead of More Nuclear Weapons

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, November 14, 2025

Contact: Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email

Contact: Scott Kovac, 505.316.4148 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – The New Mexico Environment Department has announced:

“A toxic chromium plume from Los Alamos National Laboratory has spread beyond Lab boundaries onto Pueblo de San Ildefonso land for the first time, with contamination exceeding state groundwater standards… These new results are conclusive evidence that the U.S. Department of Energy’s efforts to contain the chromium plume have been inadequate.”

In reality, chromium groundwater contamination probably migrated beyond the LANL/San Ildefonso Pueblo boundary long ago, with past Lab maps of the plume “magically’ stopping at the border. In the past, tribal leadership has commented that it was fortunate that the contamination stopped there, but that any future indications of groundwater contamination on Pueblo land could have serious consequences. The San Ildefonso Pueblo is a sovereign Native American tribal government.

As late as the late 1990s the Lab was falsely claiming that groundwater contamination was impossible because underlying volcanic tuff is “impermeable.” [1] This ignored the obvious fact that the Parajito Plateau is heavily seismically fractured, providing ready pathways for contaminant migration to deep groundwater. By 2005 even LANL acknowledged that continuing increasing contamination of the regional aquifer is inevitable.[2] Some 300,000 northern New Mexicans rely upon the aquifer for safe drinking water. The potential serious human health effects (including cancer) caused by chromium contamination was the subject of the popular movie Erin Brockovich.

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LANL Prioritizes Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Core Production Over Safety

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, November 6, 2025

Contact: Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email

Contact: Scott Kovac, 505.316.4148 | Email

 Santa Fe, NM – The independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board recently released its Review of the Los Alamos Plutonium Facility Documented Safety Analysis. It concluded that:

“While LANL facility personnel continue to make important upgrades to the Plutonium Facility’s safety systems, many of those projects have encountered delays due to inconsistent funding and other reasons. DOE and LANL should consider prioritizing safety-related infrastructure projects to ensure that the Plutonium Facility safety strategy adequately protects the public, as the facility takes on new and expansive national security missions.” (Page 24)

In early October 2024, the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced with great fanfare that the Los Alamos Lab had produced its first “diamond stamped” plutonium pit for the nuclear weapons stockpile. Tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars have been sunk into LANL’s long delayed and over budget pit production program. Given no further announcements, it is not currently known whether or not the Lab is meeting its congressionally required production goals. Endemic nuclear safety problems have long been an intractable issue, at one point even forcing a three-year halt to plutonium operations at LANL’s Plutonium Facility-4 (“PF-4”).

In its recent Review, the Safety Board reported:

“The [2009] Plutonium Facility safety basis described very large potential [radioactive] dose consequences to the public following seismic events…. DOE committed to upgrade and seismically qualify the ventilation system, with a particular focus on a specific ventilation subsystem…”

“As the only facility in the DOE complex that can process large quantities of plutonium in many forms, [PF-4] represents a unique capability for the nation’s nuclear deterrent. The Board has long advocated for the use of safety-related active confinement systems in nuclear facilities for the purposes of confining radioactive materials…Passive confinement systems are not necessarily capable of containing hazardous materials with confidence because they allow a quantity of unfiltered air contaminated with radioactive material to be released from an operating nuclear facility following certain accident scenarios. Safety related active confinement ventilation systems will continue to function during an accident, thereby ensuring that radioactive material is captured by filters before it can be released into the environment…  (Page 2, bolded emphases added)

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Trump Orders Nuclear Weapons Testing for New Nuclear Arms Race

Sophia Meryn

New Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Cores at Los Alamos Lab Could Make It Real

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, October 30, 2025

Contact: Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342, c. 505.470.3154 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – Just minutes before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform that “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.” House Speaker Mike Johnson soon followed on CNN saying, “I think it is an obvious and logical thing to ensure that our weapons systems work.”

No other countries are currently testing nuclear weapons (the last was by North Korea in 2017). Further, any nuclear weapons tests by the U.S. would be performed by the Department of Energy (whose last test was in 1992), not the Department of War (until recently the Department of Defense). Trump was likely referring to Vladimir Putin’s recent claims of a new nuclear powered cruise missile and a tsunami-causing nuclear-armed torpedo that could threaten America’s coastal cities. In addition, China is dramatically expanding its own fleet of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

But central to all this is the U.S.’ own $2 trillion “modernization” program that will rebuild every nuclear warhead in the planned stockpile with new military capabilities and produce new-design nuclear weapons as well. This so-called modernization program will also build new nuclear weapons production facilities expected to be operational until ~2080, and buy new missiles, subs, and bombers from the usual rich defense contractors, all to keep nuclear weapons forever.

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LANL Expands Nuclear Bomb Production, Rejects Cleanup, Still Plans to Release Tritium

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, August 3, 2025

Contact: Scott Kovac – 505.316.4148 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – Eighty years after the first radioactive waste was buried at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Lab officials have released plans to “defer” cleanup of one of the older radioactive dumps. Material Disposal Area C (“Area C”) is an 11.8-acre site that was active from 1948 to 1974. It contains metals, hazardous constituents, and radioactively and chemically contaminated materials in six unlined disposal pits and 108 shafts. The total waste and fill in the pits and shafts are estimated at 198,104 cubic meters. Area C also has a serious gas plume of industrial solvents. Given the amount of long-lived plutonium wastes that are likely to be in Area C, leaving it buried 25 feet deep in a landfill rated for only 1,000 years is not acceptable.

On June 18, 2025, the Department of Energy (DOE) sent the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) a letter outlining its plans to “defer corrective action” (i.e. cleanup) at Area C. It stated that the dump “is associated with active Facility operations and will be deferred from further corrective action under [NMED’s] Consent Order [governing cleanup] until MDA C is no longer associated with active Facility operations.”

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Planned Nuclear Weapons Activities Increase to 84% of Lab’s Budget; All Other Programs Cut

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, June 30, 2025

Contact: Scott Kovac – 505.316.4148 | Email

The Department of Energy and Los Alamos National Laboratory have released the LANL congressional budget request for the upcoming fiscal year, 2026, which begins on October 1, 2025. The request shows a continued major increase and expansion of the plutonium pit production program (plutonium pits are the triggers of nuclear weapons). LANL is frantically trying to increase its capabilities to begin making 30 pits per year by 2028.

NukeWatch created the above chart to give a visual of how taxpayer dollars are annually spent at the Lab. LANL’s FY 2026 total budget request is $6 billion, which is a 17% increase over the FY 2025 $5.2 billion total budget. This includes a 24% increase in the nuclear weapons budget over FY 2025.

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NNSA’s Nuclear Weapons Programs Slated for 53% Increase

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, June 3, 2025

Contact: Jay Coghlan – 505.989.7342 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – Topline budget figures for the Department of Energy (DOE) have been released under the headline of “Unleashing a Golden Era of Energy Dominance and Energy Innovation and Protecting the Nation.” But as a baseline, 65% of the Department’s proposed $46 billion budget is earmarked for its semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). In turn, more than 80% of NNSA’s proposed FY 2026 funding is for its nuclear weapons research and production programs, with a 25% funding increase over FY 2025.

But that is not all. The Trump Administration is adding another $4.8 billion from so-called “reconciliation” funding, bringing NNSA’s “Total Weapons Activities” to just under $30 billion. Taken together, this is a 53% increase above FY 2025 for NNSA’s nuclear weapons research and production programs. To help pay for this, nonproliferation and cleanup programs are being cut by 5%, science by 14%, cybersecurity and emergency response by 25%, and energy efficiency and renewable energy programs by 74%.

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Lawsuit Compels Nationwide Public Review of Plutonium Bomb Core Production

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, May 9, 2025

Media Contacts:
Ben Cunningham, Esquire, SCELP, 843-527-0078, ben@scelp.org
Queen Quet, Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, 843-838-1171, GullGeeCo@aol.com
Tom Clements, Savannah River Site Watch, 803-834-3084, tomclements329@cs.com
Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, 505-989-7342, jay@nukewatch.org
Scott Yundt, Tri-Valley CAREs, 925-443-7148, scott@trivalleycares.org

AIKEN, S.C. — Today the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency within the Department of Energy, published a formal Notice of Intent in the Federal Register to complete a nationwide “programmatic environmental impact statement” on the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores. Pits are the essential radioactive triggers of modern nuclear weapons. The NNSA is aggressively seeking their expanded production for new-design nuclear weapons for the new nuclear arms race.

The South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP) successfully represented the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition and Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment in a legal challenge to NNSA’s attempt to improperly jump start dual site pit production. On September 30, 2024, United States District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that the NNSA had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with its plan to produce at least 30 pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and at least 50 pits per year at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.

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Historic Settlement Reached in NEPA Lawsuit Over Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Core Production

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, January 17, 2025

Media Contacts:
Ben Cunningham, Esquire, SCELP, 843-527-0078, ben@scelp.org
Tom Clements, Savannah River Site Watch, 803-834-3084, tomclements329@cs.com
Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, 505-989-7342, jay@nukewatch.org
Scott Yundt, Tri-Valley CAREs, 925-443-7148, scott@trivalleycares.org
Queen Quet, Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, 843-838-1171, GullGeeCo@aol.com

AIKEN, S.C. — Nonprofit public interest groups have reached an historic settlement agreement with the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). This is the successful result of a lawsuit against NNSA over its failure to complete a programmatic environmental impact statement on the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This agreement and a joint motion to dismiss have been submitted to Judge Mary Lewis Geiger of the Federal District of South Carolina. Should the Court enter the dismissal and retain jurisdiction to enforce the settlement, the agreement will go into effect.

This lawsuit was first filed in June 2021 by co-plaintiffs Savannah River Site Watch of Columbia, SC; Nuclear Watch New Mexico of Santa Fe, NM; Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs), based in Livermore, CA; and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition of coastal Georgia. NNSA promptly moved to have the case dismissed which in February 2023 Judge Lewis rejected, calling her decision “not a close call.”

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DOE Rejects Comprehensive Cleanup at Los Alamos Lab; Designates Expanded Nuclear Weapons Production as Preferred Future

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, January 15, 2025

Contact: Jay Coghlan, 505.989.7342 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – Today, in an informal conference hosted by the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED), the Department of Energy rejected future excavation, characterization and further treatment of its radioactive and toxic wastes at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Just five days ago, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration formally designated radically expanded nuclear weapons programs as the “preferred alternative” for the Lab’s future.[1] The key issue is the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores for the accelerating nuclear arms race.

In a draft Order, NMED directed DOE to comprehensively clean up “Area C,” a radioactive and toxic waste dump from the 1950s. Nuclear Watch New Mexico strongly supports NMED’s position. Area C is relatively small and shallow at 11 acres and not more than 25 feet deep. Therefore, it is an excellent model for future comprehensive cleanup at LANL, such as the much larger Area G waste dump. A public hearing is required before NMED can implement a final Order, but DOE seeks to delay that hearing as well.

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New Draft LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement is Released

Sophia Meryn

NNSA’s Preferred Future for the Lab is Radically Expanded Nuclear Weapons Programs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, January 10, 2025
Jay Coghlan – 505.989.7342 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has finally released its Draft Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for Continued Operation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. This is more than two years after it was first announced and sixteen years after the last site-wide EIS. During that time the Lab has become more and more a nuclear weapons production site for the new global nuclear arms race. Accordingly, the central point of the new draft LANL SWEIS is “NNSA has identified the Expanded Operations Alternative as the preferred alternative for the continuing operations of LANL.” Draft LANL SWEIS, page S-13.

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Independent Review of Chromium Groundwater Contamination Fails to Make Final Cleanup Recommendation

Sophia Meryn

After 20 Years Los Alamos Lab Still Doesn’t Know Size of Plume
At Present Rate Cleanup Will Take More Than a Century

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, January 2, 2025

Contact: Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, 505-989-7342, jay@nukewatch.org

Santa Fe, NM – On December 30, 2024, in the middle of the holiday season, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) posted the report Independent Review of the Chromium Interim Measures Remediation System to its largely unknown Legacy Cleanup Electronic Public Reading Room. This report attempts to address the Lab’s extensive contamination of the region’s deep groundwater aquifer by a large plume of hexavalent chromium, whose potentially serious human health effects (including cancer) was the subject of the popular movie Erin Brockovich.

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Court Rules U.S. Nuclear Weapons Production Plan Violates Federal Law

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, October 3, 2024

Media Contacts:
Ben Cunningham, Esquire, SCELP, 843-527-0078, ben@scelp.org
Tom Clements, Savannah River Site Watch, 803-834-3084, tomclements329@cs.com
Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, 505-989-7342, jay@nukewatch.org
Scott Yundt, Tri-Valley CAREs, 925-443-7148, scott@trivalleycares.org
Queen Quet, Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, 843-838-1171, GullGeeCo@aol.com

AIKEN, S.C. — On September 30, United States District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that the United States Department of Energy (“DOE”) and its semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (“NNSA”), violated the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with their plan to produce plutonium pits, a critical component of nuclear weapons, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (“LANL”) in New Mexico and, for the first time ever, at the Savannah River Site (“SRS”) in South Carolina.

The Court found that the plan’s purpose had fundamentally changed from NNSA’s earlier analyses which had not considered simultaneous pit production at two sites.  These changes necessitated a reevaluation of alternatives, including site alternatives, which Defendants failed to undertake prior to moving forward while spending tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars. Therefore, the Court entered judgment in favor of Plaintiffs, the nonprofit public interest groups Savannah River Site Watch, Nuclear Water New Mexico and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs); the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition; and Tom Clements as an individual plaintiff.

As a result of this ruling, the Defendants are required to newly assess pit production at a nation-wide programmatic level which will mean undertaking a thorough analysis of the impacts of pit production at DOE sites throughout the United States, including radioactive waste generation and disposal. Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), this will provide the opportunity for public scrutiny of and formal comment on their assessments.

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High Detections of Plutonium in Los Alamos Neighborhood – As We Enter a New Nuclear Arms Race the Last One is Still Not Cleaned Up

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, August 15, 2024
Dr. Michael Ketterer – 928.853.7188 | Email
Jay Coghlan – 505.989.7342 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – In April Nuclear Watch New Mexico released a map of plutonium contamination based on Lab data. Today, Dr. Michael Ketterer, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Northern Arizona University, is releasing alarmingly high results from samples taken from a popular walking trail in the Los Alamos Town Site, including detections of some of the earliest plutonium produced by humankind.

On July 2 and 17 Dr. Ketterer, with the assistance of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, collected water, soil and plant samples from Acid Canyon in the Los Alamos Town Site and soil and plant samples in Los Alamos Canyon at the Totavi gas station downstream from the Lab. The samples were prepared and analyzed by mass spectrometry at Northern Arizona University to measure concentrations of plutonium, and to ascertain its sources in the environment.

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Groups Fire Back at Feds’ Move to Dismiss Plutonium Pit Lawsuit

NNSA Delays Urgent Research on Plutonium “Pit” Aging While Spending Tens of Billions on Nuclear Weapons Bomb Core Production

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, April 17, 2024
Tom Clements, SRS Watch – 803.240.7268 | Email
Scott Yundt, TVC – 415.990.2070 | Email
Jay Coghlan – 505.989.7342 | Email

Nearly three years after filing a Freedom of Information Act request, the public interest group Savannah River Site Watch has finally received the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) congressionally-required “Research Program Plan for Plutonium and Pit Aging.” However, the document is 40% blacked out, including references and acronyms. Plutonium “pits” are the radioactive cores of all U.S. nuclear weapons. The NNSA claims that potential aging effects are justification for a ~$60 billion program to expand production. However, the Plan fails to show that aging is a current problem. To the contrary, it demonstrates that NNSA is delaying urgently needed updated plutonium pit aging research.

In 2006 independent scientific experts known as the JASONs concluded that plutonium pits last at least 85 years without specifying an end date [i] (the average pit age is now around 40 years). A 2012 follow-on study by the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab concluded:

“This continuing work shows that no unexpected aging issues are appearing in plutonium that has been accelerated to an equivalent of ~ 150 years of age. The results of this work are consistent with, and further reinforce, the Department of Energy Record of Decision to pursue a limited pit manufacturing capability in existing and planned facilities at Los Alamos instead of constructing a new, very large pit manufacturing facility…” [ii]

Since then NNSA has reversed itself. In 2018 the agency decided to pursue the simultaneous production of at least 30 pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in northern New Mexico and at least 50 pits per year at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. Upgrades to plutonium facilities at LANL are slated to cost $8 billion over the next 5 years. The redundant Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility in South Carolina will cost up to $25 billion, making it the second most expensive building in human history.

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NNSA’s Nuclear Weapons Budget Takes Huge Jump

Sophia Meryn

Arms Race Accelerates with MIRVed Warheads
Los Alamos Lab Cleanup Cut

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, March 11, 2024
Jay Coghlan – 505.989.7342 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – Ironically the day after the film Oppenheimer was awarded multiple Oscars, the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) asked Congress for its biggest nuclear weapons budget ever. NNSA’s FY 2025 request for “Total Weapons Activities” is $19.8 billion, $700 million above what Congress recently enacted for FY 2024. It is also a full billion dollars above what President Biden asked for last year, which Congress then added to and will likely do so again.

The Biden Administration states that the $19.8 billion will be used to:

“[P]rioritize implementation of the 2022 National Defense Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review by modernizing the Nation’s nuclear deterrent to keep the American people safe. The Budget supports a safe, secure, reliable, and effective nuclear stockpile and a resilient, responsive nuclear security enterprise necessary to protect the U.S. homeland and allies from growing international threats.” whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/budget_fy2025.pdf, page 75.

The 2022 National Defense Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review for the first time posited two nuclear “near peers”, i.e. Russia and China, that need to be simultaneously “deterred.” This hinted at a potentially large nuclear buildup which this budget may now be implementing. That claimed need to deter two nuclear near peers was explicitly taken a step beyond just deterrence in an October 2023 report from the Strategic Posture Commission. It declared:

“Decisions need to be made now in order for the nation to be prepared to address the threats from these two nuclear-armed adversaries arising during the 2027-2035 timeframe. Moreover, these threats are such that the United States and its Allies and partners must be ready to deter and defeat both adversaries simultaneously.” ida.org/research-and-publications/publications/all/a/am/americas-strategic-posture, page vii (bolded emphasis added)

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NNSA Suppresses How Taxpayers Money Is Spent

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, January 19, 2024
Jay Coghlan – 505.989.7342 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has just released cursory two or three page summaries of contractors’ performance paid for by the American taxpayer. For the just ended fiscal year 2023, NNSA gave nothing less than grades of “Excellent” or “Very Good” in six broad mission goals for its major contractors. This is despite the constant cost overruns and schedule delays that are the rule, not the exception, in the nation-wide nuclear weapons complex. NNSA and its parent Department of Energy have been on the Government Accountability Office’s “High Risk List” for project mismanagement ever since GAO started that List in 1991.

NNSA Suppresses How Taxpayers Money Is SpentA current example is the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 Plant near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, originally estimated in 2011 to cost $1.4 to $3.5 billion. After costs started going through the roof, NNSA and Senator Lamar Alexander (R.-TN), then-chair of Senate Energy and Water Appropriations, swore that UPF would never go over $6.5 billion. But even after eliminating non-nuclear weapons production missions and a formal decision to continue operations at two old, unsafe buildings slated for replacement, the Uranium Processing Facility is now estimated to cost $8.5 billion. However, even that is not the final price, as NNSA is still to “rebaseline” UPF costs at some unspecified date.

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U.S. Strategic Posture Commission Ratchets Up Nuclear Arms Race

Sophia Meryn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, October 12, 2023
Jay Coghlan – 505.989.7342 | Email

Santa Fe, NM – Today, America’s Strategic Posture, The Final Report was released by the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. In its own words:

“The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States was established by the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and concludes that America’s defense strategy and strategic posture must change in order to properly defend its vital interests and improve strategic stability with China and Russia. Decisions need to be made now in order for the nation to be prepared to address the threats from these two nuclear-armed adversaries arising during the 2027-2035 timeframe. Moreover, these threats are such that the United States and its Allies and partners must be ready to deter and defeat both adversaries simultaneously.”

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