2025 Highlights and What is in Store for 2026

Please allow us to state the obvious:  2025 has been a busy year in terms of addressing proposals for MORE to support the growing nuclear weapons complex in New Mexico.  From Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration have big plans. Specifically, we’ll continue to oppose them.

From a proposed LANL electrical line across the Caja del Rio, to venting of radioactive tritium from containers that had been in storage for decades, to the discovery of the expansion of the chromium plume to Pueblo de San Ildefonso, the harm continues.

In 2026 new proposals for expanded plutonium pit production are on the table. In the spring, we’ll have the opportunity to provide comments about the scope of the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Plutonium Pit Production at LANL and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Presidential Executive Orders may well be used to change and obliterate the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, limiting the public scoping comment period to 30 days.  And inevitably, it will be scheduled during Holy Week or other traditional spring holidays.

There will be educational trainings about the nuclear weapons complex in New Mexico and how to prepare effective scoping comments.

CCNS will continue the fight for proper regulation of LANL’s Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility (RLWTF).  It is a key facility that handles, treats and stores plutonium-contaminated and low-level wastewaters from the Plutonium Facility, or PF-4.  Underground pipes and trucks deliver contaminated waters to the RLWTF.

There is one discharge pipe from the RLWTF into Effluent Canyon.  For nearly a decade, LANL used a mechanical evaporator system to dispose of the treated liquids into the air. Then LANL began discharging through the pipe again.

That one discharge pipe is regulated by both the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the New Mexico Environment Department.  The federal and state discharge permitting processes generally run in tandem, which doubles the work for small grassroots organizations, like CCNS.

Currently, EPA and LANL’s nuclear weapons contractor, Triad National Security, LLC, are challenging our standing before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.  And Triad is challenging our standing before the New Mexico Supreme Court. Our filings are due to both courts in early January.

Your financial support is needed more than ever.  Please consider signing up to make a monthly contribution on our website at nuclearactive.org.  Together we are making a difference!

1. Friday, December 26th from noon to 1 pm – Join the nuclear disarmament community at the intersection of East Alameda and Sandoval in Santa Fe for the weekly peaceful protest in support of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Join with Veterans for Peace, CCNS, Nuclear Watch NM, Loretto Community, New Mexico Peace Fest, Pax Christi and others. Bring your flags, signs and banners.

2. Watch A House of Dynamite on Netflix. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has published a resource guide to viewing “A House of Dynamite.”  https://thebulletin.org/2025/10/a-bulletin-resource-guide-to-viewing-a-house-of-dynamite/

3. SAVE THE DATES – April 4^th – 11^th, 2026: Shut Down Drone Warfare at Alamogordo and Holloman AFB. For more information, email  nmvetsforpeace@gmail.com

4. If you appreciate our work, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to CCNS before the end of the year. We’re on Paypal, or mail your contribution to:  CCNS, POB 31147, Santa Fe, NM  87594-1147.  Thank you!!!

Tags: Caja del Rio, Department of Energy, DOE, Effluent Canyon, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, LANL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Environmental Policy Act, National Nuclear Security Administration, NEPA, New Mexico Environment Department, New Mexico Supreme Court, Presidential Executive Orders, Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Plutonium Pit Production, Pueblo de San Ildefonso, Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility, RLWTF, Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, Triad National Security LLC, Venmo, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Water Quality Control Commission, WIPP