Name: 

Street: 

City: 

State:   Zip: 

Email: 

Date: 




Technical Area (TA) 18 at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) presents a severe potential threat to the health and safety of New Mexicans because:

* The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent agency chartered by Congress, predicts that an accident during criticality experiments at TA-18 would be the second most severe accident possible at LANL.  The Board also found that ³[r]ecent federal oversight at TA-18 has been minimal.²

* TA-18 has routinely failed mock terrorist intrusions that may  compromise the security of the estimated three tons of special 
nuclear materials stored there.

* TA-18 lies in a canyon floodplain less than 5 miles from the Rio Grande and routinely releases some of the highest radiation, including neutrons, into the air from the LANL site.

Therefore, in order to protect the health and safety of New Mexicans, I respectfully urge you to pressure the Department of Energy to cease all criticality experiments at TA-18 until these safety issues are verifiably resolved.