Celebrate the Bob Alvarez Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday, March 19th

Please join the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability https://ananuclear.org/ and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service https://www.nirs.org/ to acknowledge Robert Alvarez, one of the bedrock founders of the national movement to unmask the human and environmental carnage that resulted directly from the U.S. effort to create a massive nuclear arsenal.  The live virtual event runs from 1 to 2:30 pm Mountain Daylight Time.  Registration and more information at https://ananuclear.org/bob-alvarez/

Bob helped CCNS when the Cerro Grande fire broke out in May 2000.  At 47,000 acres, the fire was the largest in New Mexico history at that time.  Seven thousand acres of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) burned.  The LANL firing sites in the southwest corner where explosives and other hazardous materials are tested burned three times.  The fire came within one mile of Area G where 40,000 drums of plutonium-contaminated and hazardous waste destined for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant were stored above ground in fabric tents.

As the fire grew, community members were concerned about their health and impacts to the environment.  New pathways formed on the mesa tops and in the canyon bottoms that washed LANL pollutants in flashfloods to the Rio Grande.

Bob and the Nuclear Policy Project were a catalyst to CCNS to organize a two-day conference entitled, Fire, Water and the Aftermath:  The Cerro Grande Fire and Its Effects on the Rio Grande.  Given Bob’s extensive national and international experience with the nuclear industry and the fact that another large fire had occurred at the Hanford site on the Columbia River in southeastern Washington State, he urged that DOE’s mission must include protection of regional water supplies.  http://www.nuclearactive.org/news/081700.html

Over 400 people attended the July conference at the El Dorado Hotel in Santa Fe.  Speakers included members of Cochiti, Picuris, Santa Clara and Tesuque Pueblos; the Department of Energy; LANL; and the New Mexico Environment Department.

Anna Hansen, currently serving as Santa Fe County Commissioner of District 2, https://www.santafecountynm.gov/county_commissioners/anna_hansen , was the Chair of the CCNS Board.  She welcomed the participants by describing opportunities in the new millennium to protect our water and earth and to provide continuing oversight of LANL.

Hansen and CCNS are grateful to Bob Alvarez and acknowledge his decades of work.  Hansen said, “Bob is an amazing human being with the knowledge, expertise and passion to address the complicated issues of the nuclear industry.  We are grateful for his advice, which resulted in the creation of the Rio Grande Watershed Initiative and CCNS’s sampling of the springs below LANL on the Rio Grande.”  http://www.nuclearactive.org/docs/RGWIindex.html

For more information about the conference, please see the Central Document for the Conference:  http://www.nuclearactive.org/docs/fire3.html and the non-verbatim conference transcript available at:  http://www.nuclearactive.org/docs/julytranscript.html

A detailed Executive Summary of the CCNS and Nuclear Policy Project report:  Fire, Earth and Water:  An Assessment of the Environmental, Safety and Health Impacts of the Cerro Grande Fire on Los Alamos National Laboratory, a Department of Energy Facility is available at:  http://www.nuclearactive.org/docs/CerroGrandeindex.html

1. International Court of Justice Press Release (March 16, 2022) about its Order on the Ukraine Request regarding Allegations of Genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Ukraine v. Russian Federation). https://icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/182/182-20220316-PRE-01-00-EN.pdf

2. Thursday, March 17th at 5:30 pm MDT – WIPP Virtual and In Person Community Forum with Reinhard Knerr, Manager of the DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office, DOE Environmental Management, and Sean Dunagan, President & Project Manager of Nuclear Waste Partnership, LLC. Online Registration Link

3. Nuclear Hotseat Podcast No. 560: Nuclear Ukraine Update:  Chernobyl Power Loss, Shelling at Zaporizhzhia with Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear, and Dr. Gordon Edwards of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.  http://nuclearhotseat.com/2022/03/16/nuclear-ukraine-russia-shells-zaporizhzhia-nukes-chernobyl/

4. Saturday, April 2^nd – Trinity Site at White Sands Missile Range open – COVID-19 Vaccination and Reservations are Required. https://www.wsmr.army.mil/Trinity/Pages/Home.aspx

Tags: Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, ANA, Anna Hansen, Area G, CCNS, CCNS Board Chair, Cerro Grande fire, Cochiti Pueblo, Department of Energy, DOE, fabric tents, Fire Water and the Aftermath: The Cerro Grande Fire and Its Effects on the Rio Grande, Hanford site, LANL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico Environment Department, NIRS, NMED, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Nuclear Policy Project, Picuris Pueblo, plutonium-contaminated waste, Rio Grande, Rio Grande Watershed Initiative, Robert Alvarez, Santa Clara Pueblo, Santa Fe County Commission of District 2, Tesuque Pueblo, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, WIPP