“I’d like to de-nuke the world,” said Trump, the same afternoon in which he claimed his prior threat to bring “fire and fury” upon North Korea “wasn’t tough enough.” The president said that until such a day, the U.S. “will be most powerful nuclear power by far” with the “biggest, finest” nuclear arsenal. “Nobody is going to be threatening us with anything,” said Trump.
CCNS is very concerned with increasing tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. Please support our work and spread the following tweets:
Ivanka, please rein in your father on North Korea. Life is too precious to waste on a nuclear war.
Melania, please rein in your husband on North Korea. Life is too precious to waste on a nuclear war.
Barron, please rein in your father on North Korea. Life is too precious to waste on a nuclear war.
To learn more about about the U.S. relationship with North Korea and the fact that the Korean War continues to this day, please visit the Korea Policy Institute at http://kpolicy.org/. “KPI is an independent research and educational institute whose mission is to provide timely analysis of United States policies toward Korea and developments on the Korean peninsula, and to educate U.S. policymakers, media and the public. Support KPI’s efforts to provide the information and analysis needed to inform a U.S. policy that respects the Korean peoples’ desire for peace, sovereignty, reconciliation, and the reunification of Korea.”
For an informed conversation about what North Korea wants (it wants peace), please listen to the August 8, 2017 interview of Christine Hong, an Associate Professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz and KPI Board member, on KPFA-FM at https://archives.kpfa.org/data/20170808-Tue0700.mp3 It begins at 33.40.
Citing a discriminatory public process involving the proposed ground water discharge permit for Waste Control Specialists (WCS), Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping (CARD), and the Alliance for Environmental Strategies, recently requested that the New Mexico Environment Department stop the permitting process. The Environment Department responded by terminating the public comment period. Comments were due to the Environment Department by August 8th. The Department plans to reissue the public notice in both English and Spanish soon, thus starting the public comment period again.
The draft permit would allow WCS, a limited liability corporation, to discharge an theoretical maximum of 170,500,000 gallons per day from the 14,900-acre radioactive and hazardous waste storage and disposal facility located in Texas on the Texas-New Mexico border, five miles east of Eunice, New Mexico. d_WCS_GWDP_1817_060917
The Environment Department’s discriminatory practices include the omission of a public notice in Spanish, the dominant language in the Eunice area; and the omission of a study about the potentially affected local communities. Further, the Environment Department did not provide inclusive public participation opportunities as required by their January 19, 2017 Settlement Agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That agreement resolved a 2003 civil rights complaint filed by CARD about the discriminatory practices involved in the permit process for the Triassic Park Hazardous Waste Treatment and Disposal Facility, located east of Roswell. EPA_FINALResolutionLetterandAgreement_TriassicPark_Complainant_011917
CARD, an Albuquerque-based non-governmental organization, filed the complaint with EPA alleging violations of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act based on race and national origin. CARD claimed the Environment Department “failed to require or perform a scientific investigation into possible disparate impacts; failed to ensure that limited-English proficient Spanish speaking residents were provided a meaningful opportunity for effective public participation in the permitting process; and has a statewide pattern and practice of similar discriminatory permitting and lack of access for limited-English proficient residents to the public participation and permitting process.” http://nuclearactive.org/epa-reaches-informal-resolution-of-14-year-old-civil-rights-complaint-against-nmed/ Fourteen years later, the Environment Department continues the same practices.
Noel Marquez, of the Artesia-based Alliance for Environmental Strategies, wrote the Environment Department, stating, “When it comes to issues of contamination of our lands, water and air regarding our southeastern region of New Mexico, the people will always come first.”
Marquez explained, “Our water is precious and many of us operate small farms and we will not allow the state or nuclear industry to threaten or stigmatize our home lands with radioactive dumps and their toxic effects. The EPA has also noticed [the Environment Department’s lack of] outreach to the public and we hope that our communities will be better served in the future.”
Recently the Department of Energy and the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) announced a settlement concerning leaking nuclear waste dumps at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that will not protect regional drinking water supplies from toxic, hazardous and radioactive pollution. The Settlement Agreement begins on p. 21 at http://permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?what=info:lanl-repo/eprr/ESHID-602518 The settlement perpetuates the myth that alternative groundwater monitoring requirements are as protective as the hazardous waste laws and regulation. Unfortunately, alternative requirements have allowed pollution to continue to migrate to the regional drinking water aquifer below LANL.
The dumps are, Area G, an operational 63-acre dump for radioactive, hazardous and toxic waste; Area H, a non-operating dump with nine deep shafts containing toxic, hazardous and explosive chemicals; and Area L, a non-operating 2.6 acre dump contaminated with fast-moving liquids, volatile organic compounds and radioactive tritium.
Because the dumps received waste after July 26, 1982, they are “regulated units” under the hazardous waste regulations. Owners and operators of regulated units must establish groundwater programs for detecting, characterizing and responding to pollution releases that reach the uppermost aquifer, “as well as lower aquifers that are hydraulically interconnected with this aquifer within the facility’s property boundary.” 40 CFR §260.10.
As documented by Robert H. Gilkeson, an independent registered geologist, the groundwater wells LANL drilled to characterize the geology near the dumps are defective and cannot detect, characterize and respond to pollutants that leak from the dumps. See Gilkeson Cleanup Documents, Groundwater Documents, Groundwater Wells, National Academy of Sciences Review of LANL Groundwater Plans and Practices (2007), and Buckman Direct Diversion Project at http://nuclearactive.org/gilkeson/
A case in point is the regional well, R-22, located 500 feet east of Area G downgradient of the boundary, along the direction of groundwater travel from beneath Area G to the property of the Pueblo de San Ildefonso, the Rio Grande, and the Buckman Wellfield, an important source of water for Santa Fe.
In 2004, pentachlorophenol was detected at six times the drinking water standard. Pentachlorophenol is a pesticide and wood preservative. The Environmental Protection Agency set a zero maximum contaminant level goal because of the serious health issues caused by exposure, including cancer and damage to the central nervous system, reproductive system, liver and kidneys.
Under the regulations, the Environment Department was required to order LANL to install more advanced groundwater monitoring. But they did not. No upgraded monitoring system was installed, nor was well R-22 replaced. The settlement perpetuates the use of alternative requirements that do not work to protect the drinking water aquifer. See Section 1.4.2 Integration with Consent Order, and Section 1.4.2.1 MDAs G, H, and L at pp. 181 and 182 at http://permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?what=info:lanl-repo/eprr/ESHID-602518 compared to 40 CFR §§264.90 – 100.
Joni Arends, of CCNS, said, “As we’ve seen with the LANL’s repeated failures to protect its own staff and contractors from unsafe working conditions, we also see its failure to live up to its responsibility to protect its neighbors and our drinking water from these truly dangerous chemicals – and NMED’s complicity in allowing it do so.” See Center for Public Integrity Nuclear Negligence five-part series at https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/
CCNS is a party to the hazardous waste permit litigation, but did not sign the settlement. CCNS is represented by the New Mexico Environmental Law Center.
Please note: LANL/DOE is hosting a public meeting about their permit modification request on Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at Fuller Lodge, 2132 Central Avenue, Los Alamos, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.
Comments are due to the New Mexico Environment Department by September 22, 2017. CCNS is preparing sample public comments you can use to develop your comments. We will let you know when they are ready by email and on social media.
On Saturday, August 5th, people will gather at 2:00 p.m. at Ashley Pond Park in Los Alamos, NM for the annual sackcloth and ashes peace vigil to commemorate Hiroshima Day.
There will be a quiet walk, then sitting in sackcloth and ashes for 30 minutes, then returning to the park, where we will reflect together on the experience as well as the current United Nations movement to outlaw nuclear weapons. On July 7th, 122 countries voted for the United Nations to adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Countries can sign the Treaty when the United Nations General Assembly meets at its Annual Meeting, beginning on September 20, 2017.
Rev. John Dear, and Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, will be speaking at the Peace Vigil.
Please bring water, an umbrella and a peace sign. Sackcloths and ashes will be provided.
For info, contact Bud Ryan at bud@siochainworld.org
After nearly 600 luminarias were lit on the Tularosa Little League field, U.S. Congressman Ben Ray Luján expressed his apologies to those who are suffering from or have died of illnesses caused by exposure to the first atomic bomb test on July 16, 1945, at the Trinity Site. The bomb contained 13 pounds of plutonium, but only three pounds fissioned. The remaining plutonium and toxic ash fell out over fields, gardens, houses, and mountains, eventually flowing into cisterns and waterways. The people, now called “Trinity Downwinders,” were not notified of the danger, nor were they evacuated.
At the Eighth Annual Candlelight Vigil on Saturday, July 15th , Congressman Luján said, “Back in 1945 when that bomb was set off here, it set off a chain of events and that wrong has never been made right. Families were impacted in a negative way, from those that had windows broken on their homes to those who saw the light (from the bomb) go off, to those who had to deal with the dust and ash that collected through the area.” https://lujan.house.gov/
Unlike downwinders in Arizona, Nevada, and Utah, the Trinity Downwinders have never been included in the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). It provides medical care and compensation to those exposed to atmospheric nuclear tests and uranium industry workers, some of which worked in New Mexico. Since 1990, over $2 billion has been awarded to claimants. https://www.justice.gov/civil/common/reca
Congressman Luján is leading to amend RECA to include the Trinity Downwinders, the Post ‘71 uranium workers, and New Mexicans exposed to radioactive contaminants living downwind and downstream of the national laboratories. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2049/all-info
The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium organized the vigil. They have been working diligently for 12 years to ensure that the Trinity Downwinders are included in the proposed amendments. https://www.trinitydownwinders.com/
Tina Cordova, a co-founder of the Consortium, said, “This community cannot thank Congressman Luján enough for his dedication to our efforts.”
She added, “It is heartbreaking every year when we add names to the list of people we’ve lost as we light luminarias and call out names. We look forward to the occasion when we can announce that the amendments to RECA have passed and people can finally receive much needed help. The hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee are a big first step.”
Recently they learned the Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled an oversight hearing about RECA for the last week of July. The hearing has been postponed to September. To contribute to sending Consortium representatives to the hearing in Washington, DC, please visit https://www.trinitydownwinders.com/donate
Disclosure: CCNS serves as the Consortium’s fiscal agent and Joni Arends, CCNS Executive Director, serves on the Steering Committee.
Our world is different today as a result of a historic vote on Friday, July 7th at the United Nations when 122 State Parties, or countries, voted yes to adopt the 10-page Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It comprehensively prohibits nuclear weapons, leading towards their eventual elimination. It stigmatizes nuclear weapons in a fashion similar to the international treaties that prohibit chemical weapons, biological weapons, anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions. http://www.undocs.org/en/a/conf.229/2017/L.3/Rev.1
The Treaty is based on international humanitarian law. It prohibits State Parties from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons. It also prohibits State Parties from assisting, encouraging or inducing anyone to engage in any of those activities. Further, States must not allow nuclear weapons to be stationed or deployed within their borders. For more information, please visit the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons at http://www.icanw.org/ and Reaching Critical Will, a project of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), at http://reachingcriticalwill.org/
Non-governmental organizations and individuals around the world have been working since the summer of 1945 to ban nuclear weapons when the United States first tested an atomic plutonium bomb at the Trinity Site in New Mexico, and used atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The entire nuclear cycle, from uranium mining and milling; to research, development and testing; to the mountains of pollution and waste created with no place to go, results in catastrophic consequences.
In April, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement met in Nagasaki to reaffirm their long opposition to nuclear weapons and work for their elimination. They wrote, “Achieving a world without nuclear weapons is an obligation to future generations and imperative to preserve our common humanity. Weapons that risk catastrophic humanitarian consequences cannot possibly be viewed as providing peoples’ security. Protecting humanity requires courage, commitment and concerted action: it is time to put humanity first by prohibiting and completely eliminating nuclear weapons.” https://www.icrc.org/en/document/never-again-nagasaki-must-be-last-atomic-bombing
Their appeal came true despite the 69 State Parties, including the United States, who did not participate in the negotiations or the vote. In the end, The Netherlands, a NATO member, voted no and Singapore abstained.
On September 20, 2017, the State Parties, including the United States, will have their first opportunity to sign the Treaty during the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York City. http://thebulletin.org/nuclear-ban-treaty-missed-us-opportunity-can-be-redeemed-september10939 The Treaty is not yet in force. It will become international law ninety days after fifty State Parties sign and ratify it.
Now that the Treaty has been adopted, CCNS believes it is time for New Mexicans to discuss a collective future that is not dependent upon the nuclear weapons industry. How do we use the Treaty to create a sustainable, renewable, contamination-free future that supports life, well-being and community? Send us your comments and join the discussion on Facebook.
Public comments about the safety of the Plutonium Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are due to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board on Friday, July 7th. CCNS prepared sample public comments you can use to craft your comments. Word Doc: SampleDNFSBpubliccomments07072017 PDF: SampleDNFSBpubliccomments07072017 Please submit them to hearing@dnfsb.gov.
The Board held a public hearing in Santa Fe on June 7th about reducing the risk of current and future plutonium inventories at LANL’s Plutonium Facility. It is the only place in the United States where plutonium triggers, or pits, for nuclear warheads are manufactured. It is located in wildfire and seismic zones, above regional surface and ground water drinking water supplies. Operations began in 1978, but have been down for almost three years due to radiation criticality issues. Nevertheless, the President proposed a $180 million budget increase to ramp up manufacturing.
The frequency of accidents and incidents at LANL is increasing. In April, a fire involving plutonium occurred in the Plutonium Facility. A worker was burned. In May, hazardous waste was shipped to Colorado for treatment with an inaccurate description of its acidic characteristics. And last month, plutonium was shipped by commercial air cargo in improper containers, which are not designed to withstand pressure changes, to two Department of Energy (DOE) sites, one in South Carolina and the other, in California. Such shipments must be shipped by ground transport. The potential harm could have been much greater than what occurred. Nevertheless, these events are not “normal,” and public should not become comfortable with them.
These events and others are documented in the excellent five-part “Nuclear Negligence” series by The Center for Public Integrity. https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/ The series documents a “litany of mishaps” that have harmed workers, while the contractors who manage and operate the DOE nuclear weapons facilities annually reap millions of dollars in performance bonuses. Journalists Patrick Malone and R. Jeffrey Smith describe the cycle of abuse that has been created by the lack of proper DOE oversight of the contractors that manage the 10 sites across the country. Bonuses are awarded based on contractor performance, which in many cases places worker health and safety at risk in order to accelerate work in order to gain the bonus. And if whistleblowers come forward to complain, DOE will reimburse the contractors for trying to silence the brave workers. The cycle perpetuates itself to the detriment of downwind and downstream communities of these facilities and the American taxpayer who is paying once, twice and sometimes three times for the mishaps of DOE and its contractors.
To learn more, please check out the five-part “Nuclear Negligence” series at The Center for Public Integrity website:
Part One: A near-disaster at a federal nuclear weapons laboratory takes a hidden toll on America’s arsenal – Repeated safety lapses hobble Los Alamos National Laboratory’s work on the cores of U.S. nuclear warheads. https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/near-disaster/
Part Two: Safety problems at a Los Alamos laboratory delay U.S. nuclear warhead testing and production – A facility that handles the cores of U.S. nuclear weapons has been mostly closed since 2013 over its inability to control worker safety risks. https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/delayed-warheads/
Part Three: Light penalties and lax oversight encourage weak safety culture at nuclear weapons labs – Explosions, fires, and radioactive exposures are among the workplace hazards that fail to make a serious dent in private contractor profits. https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/light-penalties/
Part Four: More than 30 nuclear experts inhale uranium after radiation alarms at a weapons site are switched off – Most were not told about it until months later, and other mishaps at the Nevada nuclear test site followed. https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/inhaled-uranium/
Part Five: Repeated radiation warnings go unheeded at sensitive Idaho nuclear plant – The inhalation of plutonium by 16 workers is preceded and followed by other contamination incidents but the private contractor in charge suffers only a light penalty. https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/repeated-warnings/
On Saturday, July 15th the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium and the Red Water Pond Road Community Association will share a moment of silence, offer healing prayers, and provide community education about the first atomic bomb test at the Trinity Test Site in 1945 and the largest liquid uranium tailings spill in U.S. history that flowed into the Rio Puerco in 1979. Both tragedies occurred on July 16th. Everyone is invited to participate.
The commemorations are part of the first Cross-Border Anti-Nuclear Action, a project of the Intermountain West Uranium Summit. Member groups are holding events across the U.S. and Canada to raise awareness that the entire nuclear industry is one deadly chain involving the extraction and milling of uranium, transportation on public routes, operation of nuclear power plants and weapons manufacture, waste disposal, all of which releases lethal radiation to air, land and water. The Summit states that the nuclear industry “is fraught with accidents, illness and threats to life on earth. It must stop before it kills more humans and other living things.” https://swuraniumimpacts.org/first-cross-border-anti-nuclear-action-july-15-16/See also Center for Public Integrity’s recent Nuclear Negligence five-part series at https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/
In the early morning of July 16, 1945, the U.S. detonated the first atomic bomb atop a 100-foot metal structure in the south central New Mexico. In the massive explosion, the radiation and toxic materials rose an estimated 70,000 feet and began to fall back to earth in what many thought was snow. Exposures were at least 10,000 times higher than what is considered safe today.
To memorialize those who have died and to honor those who are living with or who have survived cancer, the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, in cooperation with the Village of Tularosa, will host the Eighth Annual Candlelight Vigil on Saturday, July 15th from 8 to 10 pm at the Tularosa Little League Field, west of the Tularosa High School.
On July 16th, 1979, an earthen uranium tailings dam at the United Nuclear Corporation Church Rock Uranium Mill failed and released 1,000 tons of solid radioactive uranium mill waste and more than 90 million gallons of acidic and radioactive liquids into the Rio Puerco. It contributed to the long-term contamination already present in the watershed from the release of untreated or poorly treated uranium mine water.
On Wednesday, federal District Judge Sue L. Robinson entered her sealed opinion in favor of the U.S. Department of Justice and prohibited Waste Control Specialists (WCS) and EnergySolutions from moving forward with the proposed $367 million merger of the two-nuclear waste storage and disposal companies. The judge’s decision was based on anti-trust law.
In a written statement, Andrew Finch, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, said, “Substantial evidence showed that head-to-head competition between EnergySolutions and Waste Control Specialists led to better disposal services at lower prices.” He continued, “Today’s decision protects competition in an industry that is incredibly difficult to enter. While EnergySolutions’ preference was to buy its main rival rather than continue to compete to win business, today’s decision ensures that customers will benefit from the competitive process.”
In anticipation of the antitrust trial and the growing expenses involved in expanding WCS’s business to include the storage of plutonium fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants, in April, WCS asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to temporarily suspend review of its application. WCS applied for a 40-year license to build and operate a consolidated interim storage facility for 44,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste. WCS planned to build the de facto parking lot dump on its 14,900 acres located on the New Mexico-Texas border, five miles east of Eunice, New Mexico. http://nuclearactive.org/wcs-asks-nrc-to-pause-license-application-review-for-high-level-irradiated-waste-storage/
In response to Judge Robinson’s ruling and citing WCS’s financial woes, Karen Hadden, of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, also known as the SEED Coalition, stated, “WCS’ high-level radioactive waste dump could be halted by the Department of Justice decision since the company has said they don’t have enough money to complete the application. However, WCS is likely to seek a bailout from their lapdog, Energy Secretary “Radioactive Rick” Perry. Taxpayers could be left footing the bill.”
Hadden commented about the safety of the WCS site. She described the WCS site as “not a safe place to store deadly high-level radioactive waste. Texans and those along transport routes shouldn’t have to suffer the health, safety, security, financial and environmental risks that transport and storage of the nation’s most dangerous radioactive waste would bring.” She continued, “People in Texas and New Mexico do not want our land to become the nation’s radioactive waste dumping ground.”
For more information about the SEED Coalition and their work to oppose WCS and its plans to expand, please see www.NoNuclearWasteAqui.org and www.NukeFreeTexas.org The SEED Coalition works with national organizations and allies in Texas and New Mexico to fight radioactive waste dumping in the Texas-New Mexico Region.
Recognizing the enduring harms to those exposed to nuclear weapon testing and use and the consequent long-term environmental damage and destruction, many are urging that those provisions be strengthened in the draft Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty. New papers by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom http://wilpf.org/, Reaching Critical Will http://reachingcriticalwill.org/, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons http://www.icanw.org/; and the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School and Article 36 http://www.article36.org/nuclear-weapons/va-er-harvard-papers/ document the harm and urge the more than 130 countries, or states parties, negotiating the treaty to broaden the assistance to those exposed to radiation and to reduce the harm from contaminated areas by providing guidelines for environmental remediation. The second session of United Nations treaty negotiations began on Thursday, June 15th and is expected to conclude on Friday, July 7th in New York City.
The suggestions are based on provisions found in existing weapon ban treaties, including the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Further, the 1996 International Court of Justice advisory opinion concluded the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is generally contrary to international law.
While the treaty will not eliminate nuclear weapons, it will “normalize” a nuclear weapon free world. As stated by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the treaty will “stigmatize these remaining weapons of mass destruction, codify their illegality and illegitimacy into international law, and help set standards and rules to facilitate their elimination.” http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Publications/bnw-prohibitions.pdf
Unfortunately, the draft treaty does not specifically mention the harm done to New Mexicans and the beautiful Land of Enchantment. Both have been damaged by the research and development of the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos National Laboratory; the test of that nuclear weapon at the Trinity Site on July 16, 1945; the mining and milling of uranium; the pollution emitted from the national laboratories at Los Alamos and Sandia; the transportation of nuclear and hazardous materials throughout the state; and the disposal of nuclear bomb waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Bringing the treaty into force would put pressure on the U.S. to provide assistance to those harmed by these activities and prioritize cleanup of contaminated water and land.
Joni Arends, of CCNS, said, “The victim assistance provisions in the draft Ban Treaty must be based on international human rights law. Detailed language must be provided to address the victims’ needs, especially their long-term medical and mental health, and outline the responsibilities of the affected states parties, including the U.S. Environmental remediation can mitigate the continuing harm from exposure to radiation and toxic chemicals. Clarifying the states parties’ obligations with cleanup guidelines would strengthen the treaty.”
