*EPA Public Hearing in Santa Fe, on
January 8 &9, 1997;
* In a classified presidential directive,
President Clinton turns U.S. nuclear policy towards a possible
emerging threat: adversaries who use chemical or biological
weapons against U. S. forces, a concern that has replaced the
nuclear terror of the cold war.
This new policy is the administration's first instruction to
the Pentagon addressing the increasingly worrisome concern that a
"rogue state" might turn biological or chemical weapons against
U.S. troops. A senior Clinton advisor claims that the policy
conforms with earlier White House statements and longstanding
policy on nuclear weapons, including support for bombers, land-
based missiles, and missile submarines, and reliance on nuclear
weapons as a mainstay of national security.
The directive increases the list of possible potential
targets that could be attacked in China, in the unlikely event of
nuclear war with that country,but abandons the concept of a
possible plan for a protracted, so-called"winnable" nuclear war.
Worries about full-scale nuclear war have been replaced by
fears about use of chemical or biological weapons: the directive
discusses responses that the U.S should have available in far
greater detail than earlier directives.
It "requires a wide range of nuclear retaliatory options,
from a limited strike to a more general nuclear exchange." said a
senior national security official.
In 1978 President Carter pledged that the United States
would not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, unless
those states fought in concert with a nuclear power or defied the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It was Iraq's suspected
violation of that treaty that allowed the Bush administration to
threaten massive retaliation, if necessary, during the Gulf
war.
In 1993, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a "Joint Doctrine
for Nuclear Operations" describing nuclear response to "weapons
of mass destruction", which could mean chemical or biological
weapons. In such a case, they said,"U.S. nuclear capabilities
must confront an enemy with risks of unacceptable damage and
disproportionate loss."
In 1995, the U.S. -- along with Britain, France, China, and
Russia -- reiterated the Carter administration's pledge, but the
pledge retained loopholes that could permit a retaliatory
strike.
Some people believe that this new nuclear targeting doctrine
is illegal, violating the U.S. Government's international
commitments to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. John Pike of the
Federation of American Scientists claims that the White House is
bowing to a strategy already dictated by the military, and
represents a greater policy shift than it is admitting.
"They are retroactively ...attempting to realign national
policy with what the operating policy has been for some time."
Pike said. The Non Proliferatiion Treaty, first signed in 1970,
requires all of the nuclear weapons states to negotiate towards
eventual total Nuclear Disarmament.
* Seventy percent of radioactive waste
from former nuclear weapons plants in Washington, Idaho and
Colorado will be trucked through Colorado over the highly
populated corridor of Interstate 25 to the Waste Isolation Pilot
Plant (or WIPP),30 miles south of Carlsbad, New Mexico.
Shipments could begin as soon as next spring.
At WIPP, 55 gallon drums containing long-lived radioactive
waste will be buried inside salt formations. During the next 35
years, there will be more than 38,000 shipments from 23 nuclear
weapons sites around the country. Although the Department of
Energy has designated I-25 and I-225 as the Colorado routes, the
Colorado State Patrol has yet to give final approval.
Councilwoman Debbie Ortega, a member of Denver's emergency
planning committee, is leading an effort to remove I-25 from the
nuclear route. Aside from concern that the huge tractor trailors
will add to growing city traffic congestion, she is worried about
incidents that could become the cause of widespread public
fear.
Steve Gunderson of the Colorado Department of Public Health
and Environment echoed her concerns, saying: "There's a lot of
fear out there."
* Officials of San Ildefonso Pueblo are
afraid that LANL will run out of money before their scheduled
cleanup program for nuclear waste from early projects is
complete.
Frank Brewer, San Ildefonso Pueblo council member was not
impressed by talk of ongoing studies of radiation pollution
containment. "Study all you want. But don't just study," he told
lab officials. "Pick it up, clean it up."
Scientists only recently acknowledged that plutonium and
other radioactive materials are traveling with rainstorm runoff
and snowmelt off Laboratory property , down the canyons of Los
Alamos toward San Ildefonso.
In October, the lab assigned a new manager to take charge of
the lab's $600 million-a-year program to deal with more than 700
remaining sites that are potential sources of pollution. LANL is
just starting to deal with the 256 worst dump sites that are
expected to use the most cleanup time and money.
Lab officials claim some sites are too large to excavate, and
propose to cap them with clay to prevent runoff, instead of
completing a full cleanup. Council member Frank Brewer
commented,
"Covering it up isn't getting rid of it... This contamination
wasn't here when Oppenheimer and his friends came here...it is
here today, and I'd like to see it gone,"
* CCNS would like to encourage the public
to attend the final EPA Public WIPP Hearings. The hearings will
be held in Santa Fe at the Harold Runnels Auditorium, 1190 St.
Francis Drive, at 3:00 p.m. --9:00p.m., January 8, and 9:00--
5:00p.m., January 9.
For more information, Call CCNS.
