After a Four-Year Journey LANL May Not Need to Vent Four Flanged Waste Tritium Containers

In an embarrassing turn of events, independent scientists Bernd Franke and Dr. Arjun Makhijani have provided Tewa Women United and the public with the analyses that the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Environmental Protection Agency would not – that the four flanged waste tritium containers may not need to be vented because they may not contain explosive materials.  DOE, NNSA and LANL did not follow the regulations to determine whether the venting was necessary and EPA, as a regulatory agency, did not either.  Community members downwind and downstream of the proposed venting have been traumatized by four years of maybe yes, maybe no, mixed DOE messages whether it would vent the tritium containers to be able to move them to a safer location.

ACTION ALERT:  Stop Tritium Venting and Protect the Most Vulnerable at https://tewawomenunited.org/2024/11/action-alert-stop-tritium-venting-and-protect-the-most-vulnerable and for more information:

PRESS RELEASE:  NEW REPORT REVEALS LANL TRITIUM VENTING COULD HAVE TRIPLE THE RADIATION EXPOSURE TO INFANTS COMPARED TO ADULTS – Tewa Women United Commissioned Two Reports to Study Impacts/Finding:  LANL Omitted Dose Calculations to Infants and Children in Their Compliance Application  –  https://tewawomenunited.org/2024/11/press-release-new-report-reveals-lanl-tritium-venting-could-have-triple-the-radiation-exposure-to-infants-compared-to-adults

Tritium is a complex and dangerous radionuclide that, depending on changing conditions, may be found in various forms ranging from radioactive hydrogen and radioactive water to tritiated water.  Without knowing the exact contents of the four tritium containers, DOE’s application to EPA stated it wanted to vent an enormous amount of trititum immediately, about three times more tritium than Japan was proposing to dump into the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster.  Depending upon the weather conditions, the harm of such venting to much smaller watersheds, for instance, the Rio Grande watershed, would be tremendous.

Further, in his paper, Out of Order:  An evaluation of the regulatory aspects of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s proposal to vent tritium from waste containers, Dr. Makhijani stated his finding that tritium “is the most ubiquitous radioactive pollutant associated with nuclear weapons and nuclear power.  Tritium, once in the body in the form of water, pervades every cell.  It crosses the placenta and impacts the embryo and the fetus at every stage, producing risks of early failed pregnancies, organ malfunctions, and neurological damage.”

DOE continued its long-standing practice to ignore the significantly greater harm to infants and children from trititum exposures.

Joni Arends, of CCNS, said, “DOE, NNSA, LANL and EPA have not done their due diligence to prevent the harm. I keep seeing the little red wagons and tricycles on the driveways and sidewalks of the new housing developments downwind and downstream of Area G, where the tritium containers are stored in a metal shed.

‘We are eternally grateful to Tewa Women United, Franke and Dr. Makhijani for their excellent scientific work to protect infants, children and families of Northern New Mexico.”

1. Friday, November 29th at noon at the intersection of West Alameda and Sandoval for the weekly one-hour peaceful protest for nuclear disarmament. Join the weekly peaceful protest 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. Monday, December 2, 2024 at 6 pm – Community Meeting & Celebration of  Santa Fe County Commissioner Anna Hansen at the Nancy Rodriguez Community Center, One Prairie Dog Loop, Santa Fe, NM  

The Agua Fria Village Association invites you to a special community meeting and celebration honoring Commissioner Anna Hansen. This will be Commissioner Hansen’s last meeting representing District 2 at the Agua Fria Village Monthly meeting.

Join the Association as they celebrate Commissioner Hansen’s dedication and service to our community. Light refreshments will be served.

3. Tuesday, December 3, 2024 ALL DAY – GIVING TUESDAY! If you appreciate receiving the weekly CCNS News Update and the Did You Know? listings of events, please financially support CCNS’s work. 

In 2024, we uncovered DOE’s hidden strategies and untruths.  As one important example that others missed: 

Last fall, when DOE released the draft Environmental Assessment for the 173 MW Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade Project across the Caja del Rio for a third electrical line, DOE was secretly negotiating for a 170 MW Foxtail Flats Solar + Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project at or near the former coal-fired San Juan Generating Station.  The renewable solar energy would be transmitted on the existing lines LANL has used for decades to receive power from the now defunct San Juan Generating Station.

CCNS discovered the plan by attending the Los Alamos Board of Public Utilities and Los Alamos County Council zoom meetings. Our comments to DOE and objections to the USFS documented what we learned about the Foxtail Flats Solar + BESS project and was publicly revealed through a series of CCNS News Updates.

We are awaiting word from the USFS whether CCNS and our colleagues will be invited to the negotiating table about the proposed Caja del Rio line and the Foxtail Flats Solar + BESS line.

4. Friday, December 6, 2024 at 1 pm MT on zoom – Hanford Watch’s Scholar Series – with Jim Werner about Long-term Stewardship of Nuclear Materials & Other Contaminated Sites. register here Even if you can’t make it, register for a link to the recording.

Jim Werner has worked for more than 40 years as a field environmental engineer; a policy analyst; in leadership positions for state and federal agencies, and an environmental NGO (NRDC); as a consultant for states, DOE, and EPA; and on Capitol Hill for the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS).

 As Director of the Strategic Planning and Analysis Office for the DOE Office of Environmental Management, Jim led efforts to publish Linking Legacies, Closing the Circle on the Splitting of the Atom and From Cleanup to Stewardship, as well as the Baseline Environmental Management Report and Plutonium: The First Fifty Years. At CRS, Jim was awarded a fellowship at the Library of Congress Kluge Center to study long-term stewardship issues.

5. Saturday, December 7^th and Sunday, December 8^th – The Second Atomic Age Cinema Fest in Hollywood at the Crescent Theater, co-presented by the “Kat Kramer’s Films That Changed the World” and the “International Uranium Film Festival.” The Second Atomic Age Cinema is the final destination of the 2024 International Uranium Film Festival tour across North America that began in March 2024 in Window Rock at the Navajo Nation Museum.  For more information:  https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/en/atomic-age-cinema-fest-in-hollywood-2025

Tags: a Director of the Institute für Energie und Umweliforschung, Area G, Bernd Franke, Co-founder of Tewa Women United, Department of Energy, DOE, Dr. Arjun Makhijani, EPA, Flanged Tritium Waste Containers, FTWC, IEER, IFEU, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Kathy Wan Povi Sanchez, LANL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Nuclear Security Administration, NNSA, Out of Order: An evaluation of the regulatory aspects of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s proposal to vent tritium from waste containers, Review of LANL Radiation Dose Assessment for the Venting of Flanged Trititum Waste Containers (FTWC) at TA-54 at LANL, Talavi Cook, Tewa Women United, Tewa Women United Environmental Justice Program Manager, TWU, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, undisclosed 53 alternatives to venting