On April 24, the New Mexico Environment Department prejudicially authorized construction of a new shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The Department of Energy (DOE) immediately started digging the shaft. Seven weeks later, the Environment Department released a draft permit for construction of the shaft for public comment. The Environment Department action to authorize the construction has tainted the required public review, comment, and hearing process about whether the shaft should be permitted. The authorization also ignored almost 300 comments submitted in 2019, more than 97 percent of which opposed DOE’s expansion plans and asked that the new shaft permit be denied. https://www.env.nm.gov/hazardous-waste/wipp/
Public comments are due to the Environment Department on or before Tuesday, August 11th. Sample public comment letter are available here: WIPP Shaft public comment letter 7-15-20
dhanson@abqjournal.com
Meanwhile, DOE is near completion of a New Filter Building that will provide over 100 percent of the fresh air that is needed by the workers. It is scheduled to be completed in the next year. The New Filter Building was needed after one or more drums of plutonium-contaminated waste exploded in the underground on February 14, 2014. The explosion contaminated portions of the mine, including the existing exhaust shaft, and contaminated 22 workers on the surface. As a result, workers need to wear personal protective equipment and ventilators in the contaminated mine.
On January 16, 2020, DOE applied for a temporary authorization to construct the shaft as a ventilation shaft. They claimed that they needed the authorization to start digging the shaft because it would take 37 months to complete the project. Even though the Environment Department knows the New Filter Building will be up and running within a year, they approved the new shaft construction along with new drifts and tunnels to connect it to the existing disposal system.
WIPP is a pilot plant located in salt beds 2,150 feet below ground surface to dispose of plutonium-contaminated waste from fabricating nuclear weapons. It opened in 1999 and is scheduled to close in 2024. It is located 26 miles east of Carlsbad. https://wipp.energy.gov/
The new shaft is all about expanding WIPP for more waste than legally allowed and new types of waste, including high-level radioactive waste from Hanford, Washington and other sites; commercial waste from West Valley, New York; weapons-grade plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; and 50 years of waste from building new nuclear weapons. http://nuclearactive.org/proposed-wipp-utility-shaft-not-needed/
1. TONIGHT at 6 pm: Nuclear Information Study Group – We Are NOT A Wasteland! Episode 4: From Shinkolobwe to Tsankawi. This is a special webinar connecting uranium mining in Congo for the Manhattan Project to the Trinity Test and LANL. Guests will be zooming from Cape Town, South Africa, Kinshasa, and Rwanda and joined by Beata Tsosie-Pena, Tewa Women United, and Tina Cordova, Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. https://www.facebook.com/NuclearIssuesStudyGroup/
2. Monday, July 20th – Comments due to NRC about their proposal to allow for disposal of radioactive waste in municipal landfills. The latest proposal is called “Very Low-Level Radioactive” (VLLR) Waste. In the mid-1990s it was called “Below Regulatory Concern,” or BRC. A sample public comment you can use is here. VLLW Comments due 7-20-20 Please submit to: VLLWTransferComments.Resource@nrc.gov
3. Sunday, August 2nd to Sunday, August 9th – virtual National Convention of Veterans for Peace.The convention theme is “Human Rights over Nuclear Might.” The New Mexico plenary will take place on Sunday, August 2nd in mid-afternoon. Stay tuned for details. To learn more about VFP’s National Convention, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org/2020-annual-convention
4. Thursday, August 6th at 8 pm EST; 6 pm MST; 5 pm PST –75th Commemoration Hiroshima Day Live One-Hour Online Webinar,hosted by the New Mexico 75th Commemoration of Hiroshima/Nagasaki Committee and Pace e Bene. CCNS is an organizer and co-sponsor of the event. The webinar is free. Please register or check the website closer to the event date for more information. https://paceebene.org/hiroshimaday2020
41 years ago, the Church Rock Uranium Mill Spill in New Mexico released 1,100 tons of uranium waste and 94 million gallons of radioactive water into the Rio Puerco and across the Navajo Nation. It is the largest accidental radioactive release in US history.
The spill was never properly cleaned up and no health studies were done. Today, New Mexicans are #StillHere, facing the contamination of their land, poisoning of their drinking water, and cancers and other health impacts. Hear stories of those impacted by the spill and learn more at https://swuraniumimpacts.org/
Today marks the 75th anniversary of the United States’ nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Survivors of those attacks and of the next few decades of testing and nuclear weapons production are still here. But so are the weapons. You can be part of the solution to ensure nuclear weapons are never used again.
I hope you will also join the national commemoration event, livestreaming August 6 and 9. You can see the full schedule online — please share this link with your friends! I also urge you to join in and follow along the discussion on social media using the hashtag #stillhere.
7/12 – 7/13 Albuquerque Journal two-part series on the Manhattan Project and Its Legacy
7/13/20 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, USA (WILPF US) sponsored webinar: “Radioactive New Mexico, From Trinity to Now.” https://youtu.be/9nfZNRXfAaM?t=347
6:00 pm Mass live streamed from vigil site, F. Simon Carlan, OSF
7:00 pm Invitation to pray and reflect, repeated on the hour
20 minutes to say the Rosary
20 minutes of silence and/or bring your own spiritual practice
20 minutes of video excerpts from topics on the creation and detonation of the first nuclear bomb in history
This hourly cycle is repeated at the top of every hour rotating the Mysteries of the Rosary, silent time, and the video content up to Detonation Time. The cycle resumes at 6:00 am after the observance of Detonation Time.
Th. 7/16
5:00 am Detonation Time Preparation and Countdown
5:29:45 am Detonation Time, Detonation Observance, Song & Prayer
6:00 pm Mass live streamed from vigil site, Fr. Simon Carian, OSF
Th. 7/16 9 am MDT – Trinity Downwinders: 75 Years and Still Waiting, zoom event of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium https://www.trinitydownwinders.com/
11 am MDT – Global Online Launch of the first Uranium Atlas: Facts and Data about the Raw Material of the Atomic Age – Leave Uranium in the Ground. www.rosalux.de/livestream
Sun. 8/2 3 pm MDT – Veterans for Peace Virtual 2020 Convention New Mexico Plenary with Tina Cordova, TBDC, and Joni Arends, CCNS https://vfp2020.attendease.com/
Sun. 8/9 4 pm MDT – “The Bomb: Understanding its History and the Hope for a Nuclear-Free Future,” with James Nolan, author of Atomic Doctors, at City Lights Bookstore webinar. http://www.citylights.com/info/?fa=event&event_id=3666
4 pm MDT – Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom USA (WILPF US) “ One Sunny Day, Remembering Hiroshima” webinar featuring author and Hiroshima survivor, Dr. Hideko Tamura Snider. https://www.vtwilpfgathering.com/8-9-zoom
And check out the WILPF US 75th Anniversary Timeline to discover information about key events in 1945, which was the year both the United Nations and nuclear weapons were created.
This week is the 65th Anniversary of the launch of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto that called for global patriotism. On July 9, 1955, the short document composed by Lord Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein argued that nuclear weapons put the human species at risk. Since no one wishes for the human race to disappear, it proposed that the world needed an agreement not to go to war. The Manifesto asks, “What steps can be taken to prevent a military contest … [that] must be disastrous to all parties?” https://pugwash.org/1955/07/09/statement-manifesto/ and reading of the Manifesto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSvjr44FqXU
The first step, according to Russell and Einstein, is for us to set aside our political opinions about issues that lead to conflicts, whether at the level of nation, continent or creed and instead consider ourselves “only as members of a biological species which has had a remarkable history.” They say, “We have to learn to think in a new way.” That is, instead of planning for a military victory, we must work toward prevention of armed conflict.
Russell and Einstein point out that sometimes the language people use makes them resist the idea that we must totally prevent nuclear war. They use the vague phrase of “a threat to mankind” or “to the human race,” instead of undertanding that “they, individually, and those whom they love are in imminent danger of perishing agonizingly.”
Russell and Einstein propose that we must also think in a new way about the damage from nuclear weapons. While the Manifesto grants that a general reduction in stockpiles of arms serves an important purpose, such as has been accomplished by nuclear arms control treaties in the 65 years since the Manifesto, it insists that we move to a more universal position and demand that our conflicts not be decided by war. In 1955, Russell and Einstein knew that a single bomb could be “2,500 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima” and that lethal radioactive particles “sink gradually and reach…the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rain,” leading to widespread disease and death.
Russell and Einsein appeal to us as human beings to “remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise, if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”
2. Monday, July 20th – Comments due to NRC about their proposal to allow for disposal of radioactive waste in municipal landfills. The latest proposal is called “Very Low-Level Radioactive” (VLLR) Waste. In the mid-1990s it was called “Below Regulatory Concern,” or BRC. A sample public comment you can use is here. VLLW Comments due 7-20-20Please submit to: VLLWTransferComments.Resource@nrc.gov
3. Sunday, August 2nd to Sunday, August 9th – virtual National Convention of Veterans for Peace.The convention theme is “Human Rights over Nuclear Might.” The New Mexico plenary will take place on Sunday, August 2nd in mid-afternoon. Stay tuned for details. To learn more about VFP’s National Convention, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org/2020-annual-convention
4. Thursday, August 6th at 8 pm EST; 6 pm MST; 5 pm PST –75th Commemoration Hiroshima Day Live One-Hour Online Webinar, hosted by the New Mexico 75th Commemoration of Hiroshima/Nagasaki Committee and Pace e Bene. CCNS is an organizer and co-sponsor of the event. The webinar is free. Please register or check the website closer to the event date for more information. https://paceebene.org/hiroshimaday2020
The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium will commemorate those who have lost their lives due to overexposure to high levels of ionizing radiation from the first atomic bomb test in south central New Mexico. The U.S. Government exploded the Trinity plutonium bomb on the morning of Monday, July 16th, 1945, at 5:29 am, at what is now known as the White Sands Missile Range. The damage done has yet to be recognized by the U.S. Government.
The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, also known as the Trinity Downwinders, are hosting the memorial event on Thursday, July 16th, beginning at 5:20 am to commemorate those who have lost their lives. It will take place outside at Civic Plaza in downtown Albuquerque. The event will be live streamed. For more information, please visit https://www.trinitydownwinders.com/ .
At 5:29 am, they will acknowledge the dropping of the bomb 75 years ago. After introductory remarks, the names of those who have lost their lives will be read with musical interludes.
At 9 am, Lieutenant Governor Howie Morales and other dignitaries will join and provide comments.
If you would like to add the name of family members or friends who have lost their lives as a result of overexposure to the Trinity test, please email the Trinity Downwinders at info@trinitydownwinders.com before Monday, July 13th.
The Trinity bomb was the first bomb of its kind. It was over packed with 13 pounds of weapons grade plutonium. When it was exploded, only three pounds fissioned and the other 10 pounds were distributed into the environment and into the bodies of people and animals. Because the test took place on a 100-foot tall tower, the force of the blast enveloped the vegetation, sand, and dirt, and took it up into the fireball that rose over seven miles into the stratosphere. The plume stratified, dividing into layers and moving at different heights and in different directions over the desert of New Mexico, dropping radioactive fallout as it moved. One can picture the stratifications if you recall how the hot air balloons move through the “box” during the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.
As a result of the damage that was done, the U.S. Government began creating its false narrative about the test. Scientists and officials at Project Y, the name of Los Alamos National Laboratory during the Manhattan Project where the bomb was fabricated, said the impacted area was “remote and uninhabited.” Nevertheless, U.S. Census data from 1940 indicate that tens of thousands of people lived, farmed, hunted, and raised families within a 50-mile radius of the test.
2. Monday, July 20th – Comments due to NRC about their proposal to allow for disposal of radioactive waste in municipal landfills.The latest proposal is called “Very Low-Level Radioactive” (VLLR) Waste. In the mid-1990s it was called “Below Regulatory Concern,” or BRC. A sample public comment you can use is here. VLLW Comments due 7-20-20 Please submit to: VLLWTransferComments.Resource@nrc.gov
3. Sunday, August 2nd to Sunday, August 9th – virtual National Convention of Veterans for Peace.The convention theme is “Human Rights over Nuclear Might.” The New Mexico plenary will take place on Sunday, August 2nd in mid-afternoon. Stay tuned for details. To learn more about VFP’s National Convention, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org/2020-annual-convention
4. Thursday, August 6th at 8 pm EST; 6 pm MST; 5 pm PST –75th Commemoration Hiroshima Day Live One-Hour Online Webinar,hosted by the New Mexico 75th Commemoration of Hiroshima/Nagasaki Committee and Pace e Bene. CCNS is an organizer and co-sponsor of the event. The webinar is free. Please register or check the website closer to the event date for more information. https://paceebene.org/hiroshimaday2020
On Tuesday, June 23rd, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held a webinar and invited telephone comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for a nuclear waste storage facility that Holtec proposes to build halfway between Carlsbad and Hobbs. Holtec applied for a license to store all of the nation’s most radioactive spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. Over twenty years, Holtec proposes to ship 10,000 canisters to the site by railroads, passing through more than forty states. https://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/cis/holtec-international.html, scroll down to Environmental Impact Statement.
In 2012, officials in Eddy and Lea counties announced that a private company would submit a license application in March 2013. In December 2015, Holtec told the NRC that it would submit the license application in June 2016, so that the facility could begin operating in 2020. The application was submitted in March 2017, and stated that NRC’s license would be issued in 2019 and that construction would begin by March 2020. https://wethefourth.org/
The webinar was the first comment meeting on the DEIS. Many commenters requested that, because of the pandemic, face-to-face meetings be held after the discovery of a vaccine. For five and a-half hours, people from more than a dozen states weighed the benefits to New Mexico of waste storage against its potential hazards and considered what it would mean for the state.
To learn more about the Holtec DEIS and the second NRC webinar on Thursday, July 9th, starting at 3 pm MDT (you have to register beforehand to speak), check out the materials prepared by the Nuclear Issues Study Group (NISG), with talking points from Sierra Club and NISG, as well as the NRC’s powerpoint presentation at https://mailchi.mp/eafed8a467ac/call-to-action-holtec-public-meeting-today-online-at-3pm-mdt
Many commenters noted that the DEIS does not adequately address transportation in New Mexico or nationwide, since it states: “Because no arrangements regarding which nuclear power plants will ship [waste]…the details regarding the specific routes that would be used also are not known at this time.” See the April 14, 2017 Update for a listing of transportation maps. http://nuclearactive.org/nrc-extends-public-comment-period-for-high-level-irradiated-waste-storage-at-wcs-to-april-28th/
Many commenters stated that the storage could be permanent because there is no disposal site. They reminded the NRC that this is why the law requires that a permanent repository be selected before the designation of an interim facility like Holtec, and this has not been done. They pointed out that the DEIS considers impacts for forty years, while Holtec plans to operate the facility for at least 120 years. Others noted that the DEIS rejected consideration of improved storage at or near the nuclear plants, so the only alternative considered was the Holtec site, even though the law requires consideration of all reasonable alternatives.
Many commenters, reflecting on racial and environmental justice, felt that New Mexico, as one of the poorest states in the nation, is being considered a “throwaway” state for waste that others don’t want. Both James Kenney, Secretary of the Environment Department, and Sarah Cottrell Propst, Secretary of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, found the DEIS technically inadequate for many reasons and reiterated that Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham strongly opposes the project. NM Governor Holtec Ltr 060719
Do You Know about the Upcoming Commemoration Events for Trinity, Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
1. Thursday, July 16th Commemoration of the July 16, 1945 – first atomic bomb test at the Trinity site in southcentral New Mexico. Details will be available soon. https://www.trinitydownwinders.com/
2. Sunday, August 2nd to Sunday, August 9th – virtual National Convention of Veterans for Peace. The convention theme is “Human Rights over Nuclear Might.” The New Mexico plenary will take place on Sunday, August 2nd in mid-afternoon. Stay tuned for details. To learn more about VFP’s National Convention, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org/2020-annual-convention
3. Thursday, August 6th at 8 pm EST; 6 pm MST; 5 pm PST –75th Commemoration Hiroshima Day Live One-Hour Online Webinar,hosted by the New Mexico 75th Commemoration of Hiroshima/Nagasaki Committee and Pace e Bene. CCNS is an organizer and co-sponsor of the event. The webinar is free. Please register or check the website closer to the event date for more information. https://paceebene.org/hiroshimaday2020
In 2018, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held five public meetings throughout New Mexico about the environmental analysis for the proposed Holtec facility because it plans to store high-level radioactive waste in the southeastern corner of the state. Packed meetings were held in Albuquerque, Carlsbad, Gallup, Hobbs, and Roswell about what issues would be included in the required environmental impact statement. NRC’s draft statement is out now for public review. Comments are due by Wednesday, July 22nd. https://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/cis/holtec-international.html, scroll down to Environmental Impact Statement. The Albuquerque-based Nuclear Issues Study Group (NISG) has prepared a sample letter SampleCommentLetter061820 and …
Remember to add your personal comments in Paragraph 2 and sign your name at the end.
But the NRC will have to extend the comment period because it has made a commitment to hold five public meetings in New Mexico, but has not yet done so.
At the beginning of the global pandemic, the five members of the New Mexico congressional delegation requested extensions of the public comment period from the NRC. The Congressional delegation wrote: “Allowing for full public participation, as [the National Environmental Policy Act] requires, is particularly important for projects involving nuclear waste. Any proposal to store commercial spent nuclear fuel raises a number of health, safety and environmental issues, including potential impacts on local agriculture and industry, issues related to the transportation of nuclear waste, and disproportionate impacts on Native American communities.” NM delegation on DEIS extension
The NRC Chairwoman responded stating the NRC staff would hold “a national webinar and five public meetings in New Mexico during the public comment period” to present its preliminary findings and receive public comments.
She continued, “As the COVID-19 public health emergency evolves, the NRC staff will continue to re-evaluate these plans for engaging the public, and will consider whether additional extensions to the comment period are warranted.” 04-21-20 Ltr to Honorable Martin Heinrich frm NRC Chrm Svinicki
Holtec International proposes to bring as much as 173,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent plutonium fuel from commercial nuclear power plants to a massive consolidated interim storage facility located half way between Carlsbad and Hobbs. This waste is more than twice the amount of spent fuel currently stored at U.S. nuclear power plants. Holtec must obtain an NRC license to construct such a facility. The draft statement is part of that process.
To operate the facility, Holtec expects the federal government will take legal title of the waste and pay for storage and transportation costs. Beyond Nuclear, a Maryland based non-governmental organization, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, challenging the legality of Holtec’s application. http://www.beyondnuclear.org/news/ The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act does not allow the federal government to take title to the waste until a permanent underground repository is operating. Yucca Mountain was supposed to be that repository, but it was stopped in 2010 due to underlying geologic issues. http://www.beyondnuclear.org/
Please note: On Tuesday, June 23rd, beginning at 3 pm MST, the NRC will hold a public online webinar about the draft environmental impact statement for the Proposed Holtec Consolidated Interim Storage Facility. This meeting is not a substitute for the five public meetings in New Mexico the NRC has committed to. To make public comments during the webinar, you must pre-register by Monday, June 22d by contacting Ms. Antoinette Walker Smith via email to: Antoinette.Walker-Smith@nrc.govNRC 6-23-20 Holtec DEIS Public Mtg
1. Saturday, June 20th and Sunday, June 21st – A digital justice gathering of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival: The Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington. Livestsream on Saturday, June 20th at 10 am and 6 pm EST (8 am and 4 pm MST), and again on Sunday, June 21st at 6 pm EST (4 pm EST). https://www.june2020.org/
2. Tuesday, June 23rd, beginning at 3 pm MST, the NRC will hold a public online webinar about the draft environmental impact statement for the Proposed Holtec Consolidated Interim Storage Facility. This meeting is not a substitute for the five public meetings in New Mexico the NRC has committed to. In order to make public comments at the webinar, you must pre-register by Monday, June 22d by contacting Ms. Antoinette Walker Smith via email to: Antoinette.Walker-Smith@nrc.govNRC 6-23-20 Holtec DEIS Public Mtg
The Albuquerque-based Nuclear Issues Study Group (NISG) has prepared an online sample letter SampleCommentLetter061820 and …
Click SHORTCUT TO SEND COMMENTS NOW!! for a quick email shortcut to send to your comments to NRC TODAY!
Remember to add your personal comments in Paragraph 2 and sign your name at the end.
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