(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:
Proposed City of Santa Fe Area G Resolution Circumvents Public Process
At the November 13th Santa Fe City Council meeting, Mayor David Coss introduced a resolution requesting that alternatives to leaving nuclear waste buried at Area G at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) be considered. As an alternative, it urges the reburial of low-level wastes at an unknown location. Unless the draft resolution is withdrawn, the full City Council will vote on Wednesday, December 11th.
While the draft resolution appears to be benign, the content raises more questions than it answers.
Area G is the 63-acre operating dump for hazardous, toxic and low-level radioactive wastes. It began operation in the late 1950s before there were laws protecting the soils, air and water from pollution. None of the pits, trenches and shafts used for waste disposal, dug out of the volcanic tuff, are lined. Pollution has been found in the water bodies below Area G, including in the regional aquifer.
The New Mexico Environment Department is responsible for the permitting of hazardous waste operations at Area G, and the other two dumps there, Areas H and L. When their first draft of the permit was released for public review and comment in 2007, it did not include closure and post-closure plans for almost 30 operating units. In these plans, LANL is required to explain what will happen when the units close. If waste is to be left in place, post-closure plans are required to detail what type of monitoring will be done. Such information is important now to understand what the future holds.
When the public objected to the lack of plans, the Environment Department required LANL to submit plans for 26 operating units, but not require plans for Areas G, H and L. The lack of plans for the leaking dumps is one of the issues CCNS raised in its appeal of the permit to the New Mexico Court of Appeals in late 2010.
If the City supports reburial of low-level waste at LANL, then the public process may be by-passed. Because the Court of Appeals case has not been resolved, the City’s resolution interferes with that process and could lead to the public not being involved in the process. DOE is self-regulating for low-level waste, which means that under DOE requirements, LANL would submit its closures plans to DOE for approval. LANL would have to prove to DOE, not the public, that the dumps would not leak for 1,000 years and that the public would not be harmed.
In this case, CCNS agrees with DOE when it acknowledged that the Area G decisions must be made by the state of New Mexico – but only after receiving input from the public. The draft resolution would bypass that public process.
The draft resolution will be heard before the Public Utilities Committee on Wednesday, December 4th.
This has been the CCNS News Update. For more information, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org.
Here the sample TA-50 comment addressed to Ryan Flynn, Secretary-Designate of the New Mexico Environment Department: f TA-50 sample comment 12-6-13
CCNS NEWS UPDATE
Runs 12/6/13 through 12/13/13
(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:
Public Comment Period for Ground Water Discharge Permit for the LANL Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility ends Thursday, December 12th
The Ground Water Quality Bureau of the New Mexico Environment Department released a draft ground water discharge permit for the 50-year old Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for public review and comment. The Communities for Clean Water have prepared sample public comments for you to use, which are posted on the websites of CCNS and Amigos Bravos. Public comments are due on or before Thursday, December 12th.
The Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility has been in operation since 1963 and treats liquid radioactive waste created at the plutonium and tritium facilities located across the LANL site. The draft permit allows LANL to discharge up to 40,000 gallons a day of treated wastewater into the environment through one of three conveyances. The first is through a discharge pipe into Mortandad Canyon. The second is through an indoor Mechanical Evaporator System. The third is to the outdoor, synthetically lined Solar Evaporation Tanks, consisting of two cells that each hold approximately 380,000 gallons, for evaporating tritium contaminated wastewater into the atmosphere. Under a plan to eliminate the discharge to groundwater in Mortandad Canyon, LANL has almost stopped use of the pipe, but has increased use of the evaporative systems.
Part of the permit application process requires that LANL submit its plans for what will happen when it’s ready to close and decommission the liquid waste treatment facility. Then both the application and the closure plans are subject to a public hearing. In this case, however, the draft permit allows LANL to submit the closure plans six months following the issuance of the permit. This results in another public comment period on just the closure plans and possibly another public hearing. CCW objects to this provision and asks you to submit public comments on the issue.
The sample public comment is directed to Ryan Flynn, the Secretary Designate of the Environment Department. It reads, “By separating the permit process from the closure process, there will have to be two permit proceedings which will cost your agency and the public time and money. By including the closure and post-closure plans with the draft permit — as required — both public and Environment Department resources are appropriately conserved and a higher level of informed decision-making can be achieved. That is a benefit to your agency and the public it serves. Requiring the closure plans now — before permit issuance — will save federal taxpayer money as well because LANL will only have to undergo one groundwater permitting process on this facility.”
This has been the CCNS News Update. To download the sample public comment and make a tax-deductible contribution, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org.
(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:
* International Uranium Film Festival in Santa Fe (11/30 – 12/1) and Window Rock (12/2 – 12/4)
The International Uranium Film Festival www.uraniumfilmfestival.org/index.php/en/ will be held in Santa Fe on Saturday, November 30th and Sunday, December 1st at the Center for Contemporary Arts and in Window Rock from Monday, December 2nd through Wednesday, December 4th at the Navajo Nation Museum Theatre. http://www.ccasantafe.org/ and http://www.navajonationmuseum.org/ The press release for the two and a half day Window Rock event explains that the festival “will be held in the homelands of indigenous communities sacrificed by the United States to produce uranium for the bombs of World War II and the Cold War. Although the Navajo Nation has a moratorium halting new uranium production, there are nearby uranium mining and milling facilities and local transport of radioactive materials happening today and more being proposed as the push for nuclear energy development continues, despite the dangers exemplified by Churchrock and Chernobyl.”
Film festival founder, Norbert G. Suchanek, will be present at the screenings, as well as producers and directors of the films. The festival highlights over 40 films from 15 countries, which explore not only the radioactive element “uranium,” but also the nuclear industry and resulting effects on local communities. There will be documentaries, experimental and animated films, fiction and science fiction films and new comedies.
Films by award-winning New Mexico filmmakers will be shown again this year. In May, New Mexico filmmaker Adam Jonas Horowitz won the Festival’s Yellow Oscar in the Best Feature Documentary category for his “Nuclear Savage: The Islands of Secret Project 4.1.” http://www.nuclearsavage.com/ The film documents the crimes against humanity with the atmospheric testing of atomic bombs in the Marshall Islands and how the local populations were used as guinea pigs.
Other New Mexico films include “The River that Harms“ by Producer Colleen Keane http://www.videoproject.com/riv-365-v.html, “Tailings” by Director Sam Price-Waldman http://tailingsfilm.com/, and “Four Stories about Water” by Deborah Begel, David Lindblom, Johnnye Lewis and Chris Shuey http://www.uraniumfilmfestival.org/index.php/en/travelling-festival/usa-2013/albuquerque/thursday-28-nov/413-at-8pm/1033-four-stories-about-water.
After the screenings in New Mexico, the festival will travel to New York City and Washington, DC.
Founded in 2011 in Rio de Janeiro, the International Uranium Film Festival seeks to educate and activate the public and inspires an informed discourse about the health and environmental risks of the nuclear cycle, from uranium mining to radioactive waste storage and disposal.
In May, at the third International Uranium Film Festival held in Rio de Janeiro, founder Suchanek said, “Art, Science, Cinema! These are the three elements that the film festival and the nuclear filmmakers are using [to] explain the unexplainable, to show the invisible. Radioactivity is invisible. It has no color, it has no smell, it has no flavor… We should know about the risks. … Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Chernobyl, Goiânia and Fukushima shall never happen again.”
This has been the CCNS News Update. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.
(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:
Public Comments Needed for Ground Water Discharge Permit for the LANL Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility
The Ground Water Quality Bureau of the New Mexico Environment Department released a draft ground water discharge permit for the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for public review and comment. http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/gwb/NMED-GWQB-PublicNotice.htm – see 9/13/13 notice. The Communities for Clean Water are preparing sample public comments for you to use, which will be posted on the websites of CCNS and Amigos Bravos soon. Public comments are due December 12th.
The Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility has been in operation since 1963 and treats liquid radioactive waste created at the plutonium and tritium facilities located across the LANL site. In 1995 the Environment Department first released a draft ground water permit for public review and comment and CCNS requested a public hearing. In 2005, another draft permit was released for public comment and the Communities for Clean Water asked for a public hearing.
The current draft permit allows LANL to discharge up to 40,000 gallons a day of treated wastewater into the environment through one of three conveyances. The first is through a discharge pipe into Mortandad Canyon. The second is through an indoor Mechanical Evaporator System. The third is to the outdoor, synthetically lined Solar Evaporation Tanks. Under a plan to eliminate the discharge to groundwater in Mortandad Canyon, LANL has almost eliminated use of the pipe.
As a result, LANL has increased the amount of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, which is released into the air through the use of the evaporation systems. The Mechanical Evaporator System is gas-generated. It is used to dispose of treated low-level radioactive waste water. The Solar Evaporative Tank System, located down the mesa in Technical Area 52, consists of two cells, each of which holds approximately 380,000 gallons of waste water. The system has a double-lined synthetic liner and a leak detection system.
Unfortunately, the draft permit requires LANL to submit plans for what will happen when it’s ready to close and decommission the TA-50 facility after a possible public hearing about the permit. Under the New Mexico regulations, however, the Environment Department Secretary may require that the closure plans be submitted as part of the permit application. If the closure plans were submitted now for the 50-year old facility, the public would have the entire package to review and make informed comments.
Joni Arends, with CCNS, said, “It has been almost been two decades for the Environment Department to regulate the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility. In order to provide informed public comments about the draft permit, it is necessary for the Environment Department to order that LANL submit their closure plans now.”
This has been the CCNS News Update. For more information, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.
(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:
* U.S. Premiere of International Uranium Film Festival in Albuquerque
The International Uranium Film Festival www.uraniumfilmfestival.org/index.php/en/ will make its U.S. premier in Albuquerque on Wednesday, November 27th and Thursday, November 28th at the Guild Cinema. http://www.guildcinema.com/ Founded in 2011 in Rio de Janeiro, the International Uranium Film Festival aims to inform the public, from a neutral position, about nuclear power, uranium mining, nuclear weapons and the health effects of exposure to radioactivity. The festival seeks to educate and activate the public and inspires an informed discourse about the health and environmental risks of the nuclear cycle, from uranium mining to radioactive waste storage and disposal.
The festival highlights over 40 films from 15 countries. There will be documentary films, experimental and animated films, new comedies, fiction and science fiction films.
Damacio Lopez, a Native New Mexican and anti-nuclear activist, is organizing the New Mexico portion of the traveling festival. He said, “These world-class documentaries provide very valuable information for the people of New Mexico. They bring accurate information from corners of the world that we have never seen before.”
Additional screenings will be held in Santa Fe at the Center for Contemporary Arts http://www.ccasantafe.org/ on Saturday, November 30th and Sunday, December 1st, and in Window Rock, Arizona at the Navajo Nation Museum Theatre http://www.navajonationmuseum.org/ from Monday, December 2nd through Wednesday, December 4th. Founder of the film festival, Norbert G. Suchanek, will be present at the New Mexico screenings, as well as the producers and directors of the films.
Films by award-winning New Mexico filmmakers will be shown again this year. In May, New Mexico filmmaker Adam Jonas Horowitz won a Yellow Oscar in the Best Feature Documentary category for his “Nuclear Savage: The Islands of Secret Project 4.1.” http://www.nuclearsavage.com/ It documents the crimes against humanity with the atmospheric testing of atomic bombs in the Marshall Islands and how the local populations were used as guinea pigs.
Other New Mexico films include “The River that Harms “ by Producer Colleen Keane http://www.videoproject.com/riv-365-v.html, “Tailings” by Director Sam Price-Waldman http://tailingsfilm.com/, and “Four Stories about Water” by Deborah Begel, David Lindblom, Johnnye Lewis and Chris Shuey http://www.uraniumfilmfestival.org/index.php/en/travelling-festival/usa-2013/albuquerque/thursday-28-nov/413-at-8pm/1033-four-stories-about-water.
After the screenings in New Mexico, the festival will travel to New York City and Washington, DC.
In May, the third International Uranium Film Festival was held in Rio de Janeiro. At the Awards Ceremony, founder Suchanek said, “Art, Science, Cinema! These are the three elements that the film festival and the nuclear filmmakers are using [to] explain the unexplainable, to show the invisible. Radioactivity is invisible. It has no color, it has no smell, it has no flavor… We should know about the risks. … Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Chernobyl, Goiânia and Fukushima shall never happen again.”
This has been the CCNS News Update. For more information, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.
(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:
* Life Extension Program for B61 Nuclear Bomb Costs Twice Its Weight in Gold
The Pentagon and the Department of Energy (DOE) have proposed to refurbish up to 500 B61 nuclear bombs with new military capabilities at a cost of $12 billion. This is an expensive proposition. Each bomb is estimated to weigh 700 pounds. Gold is currently priced at over $1,350 per troy ounce. In the extreme and at that cost, each bomb could be made out of solid gold and have an exact twin.
More than $2.65 billion of the work would be done at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque under the Life Extension Program. About 180 of the B61 Cold War bombs are based in Europe. Government officials in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, where many of the bombs are based, are asking that they be removed.
The costs of the program have increased exponentially over the years. The Obama Administration requested $537 million for the B61 refurbishment in Fiscal Year 14, which began October 1st. The House Appropriations Committee fully funded the request, but the Senate Appropriations Committee cut the budget 31 percent, or $168 million. Because of the recent Continuing Resolution, the B61 funding extends current, lower funding levels.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico has argued for some time that the Life Extension Program will give new military capabilities to the B61. The Air Force is proposing to modify the tail kit. Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of the group, said that the tail kit assembly “will dramatically increase the targeting accuracy, functionally melding tactical and strategic variants.” He added that the Department of Energy Life Extension Program “will transform a dumb analogue bomb into a digital nuclear ‘smart’ bomb for delivery by future super stealthy aircraft,” referring to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Coghlan concluded by saying, “In my view, this combination clearly creates new military capabilities.” http://www.nukewatch.org
Further, in June a coalition of religious organizations wrote to the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee arguing against funding the B61 nuclear bomb refurbishment. They wrote, “In these times of fiscal constraints, when funding for social programs and services that promote human security by helping feed and house the disenfranchised and the needy are being reduced, it is morally unjustifiable to spend billions of dollars on nuclear weapons systems that we do not need.”
Joni Arends, of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, urged the public to contact their elected officials. She said, “Now is the time to contact your elected congressional members and voice your concerns. For more information and an electronic action alert, please visit the Friends Committee on National Legislation website at http://fcnl.org/issues/nuclear/.”
This has been the CCNS News Update. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.
11-22-13 ACTION ALERT!
Contact your Senators to cut funding for the B61 Life Extension Program. Sample comment letters are available at http://www.fcnl.org. Last week, Senator Corker (R-TN) introduced the following amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act:
SA 2338<http://beta.congress.gov//amendment/113th-congress/senate-amendment/2338/>. Mr. CORKER submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 1197 <http://beta.congress.gov//bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/1197/>, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2014 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows: At the end of subtitle E of title X, add the following: SEC. 1046. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON B61-12 LIFE EXTENSION PROGRAM. (a) Findings.–Congress makes the following findings:
(1) During the debate in the Senate on the ratification of the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, signed on April 8, 2010, and entered into force on February 5, 2011, between the United States and the Russian Federation (commonly known as the “New START Treaty”), leaders in both Congress and the executive branch acknowledged the critical linkage between the modernization of the nuclear arsenal and the ability to safely reduce the number of warheads in the nuclear stockpile of the United States.
(2) As proposed by the President, successfully executing the B61-12 life extension program would generate an 53 percent reduction in the total number of air-delivered gravity weapons in the active and inactive nuclear stockpile of the United States and an 87 percent reduction in the total amount of nuclear material utilized by air-delivered gravity weapons in the nuclear stockpile of the United States.
(3) The B61-12 life extension program has already been delayed by fluctuating appropriations and further delays in appropriations threaten the viability and credibility of the nuclear deterrent of the United States and the nuclear assurances provided to allies of the United States in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and in the Pacific region.
(4) Alternative proposals to refurbish B61 nuclear weapons do not meet the military requirements of the United States Strategic Command and fail to address all of the concerns relating to aging faced by the existing B61 series of air- delivered gravity weapons.
(b) Sense of Congress.–It is the Sense of Congress that–
(1) further delays to the B61-12 life extension program would have unacceptable effects on the reliability and credibility of the nuclear deterrent of the United States; and
(2) it is critical that the United States ensure that there are no further delays in successfully executing the ongoing B61-12 life extension program, development of the associated tail-kit assembly, and development of a nuclear-capable F-35 Block 4 aircraft. ______
(a) Findings.–Congress makes the following findings:
(1) During the debate in the Senate on the ratification of the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, signed on April 8, 2010, and entered into force on February 5, 2011, between the United States and the Russian Federation (commonly known as the “New START Treaty”), leaders in both Congress and the executive branch acknowledged the critical linkage between the modernization of the nuclear arsenal and the ability to safely reduce the number of warheads in the nuclear stockpile of the United States.
(2) As proposed by the President, successfully executing the B61-12 life extension program would generate an 53 percent reduction in the total number of air-delivered gravity weapons in the active and inactive nuclear stockpile of the United States and an 87 percent reduction in the total amount of nuclear material utilized by air-delivered gravity weapons in the nuclear stockpile of the United States.
(3) The B61-12 life extension program has already been delayed by fluctuating appropriations and further delays in appropriations threaten the viability and credibility of the nuclear deterrent of the United States and the nuclear assurances provided to allies of the United States in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and in the Pacific region.
(4) Alternative proposals to refurbish B61 nuclear weapons do not meet the military requirements of the United States Strategic Command and fail to address all of the concerns relating to aging faced by the existing B61 series of air- delivered gravity weapons.
(b) Sense of Congress.–It is the Sense of Congress that–
(1) further delays to the B61-12 life extension program would have unacceptable effects on the reliability and credibility of the nuclear deterrent of the United States; and
(2) it is critical that the United States ensure that there are no further delays in successfully executing the ongoing B61-12 life extension program, development of the associated tail-kit assembly, and development of a nuclear-capable F-35 Block 4 aircraft.
(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:
LANL Open Burn Meeting Set for Wednesday, October 30th at Fuller Lodge
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) will host a public meeting about their application to gain a permit to continue the treatment of hazardous waste by open air burning at Technical Area 16, located in the southwest corner of the laboratory, near the Bandelier National Monument. LANL is proposing to burn up to 6,000 pounds of hazardous waste per year, which includes high explosives and solvents, with a limit of 200 pounds per individual burn. The meeting will take place on Wednesday, October 30th from 5:30 to 7:30 pm at Fuller Lodge, located at 2132 Central Avenue in Los Alamos.
The meeting will occur before LANL submits its permit application to the New Mexico Environment Department, who is the regulator. http://www.lanl.gov/community-environment/environmental-stewardship/public-reading-room.php LANL is proposing to include the open burning unit into the hazardous waste permit issued by the New Mexico Environment Department in 2010. http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/HWB/Permit.htm There are many open burn and open detonation units across the LANL site which operate under “interim status,” meaning that no formal request for a permit to operate has been submitted to the regulator.
Two open burn units at TA-16 were proposed to be permitted during the 2010 public hearing about the draft hazardous waste permit. They are identified as TA-16-388 and TA-16-399. During the hearing, the Hazardous Waste Bureau of the Environment Department opposed the open burning operations because LANL had not proved that the operations would not harm human health and the environment. But the Secretary of the Environment Department disagreed and allowed LANL to submit an application for a permit.
In the meantime, LANL used the TA-16-399 unit to reduce its inventory of bulk high explosives. LANL submitted a plan to close this unit and the Environment Department anticipates releasing a draft closure plan for public review and comment in November 2013.
LANL has submitted an application for the TA-16-388 open burn unit, which is the subject of the public meeting. The TA-16-388 unit includes a 22 foot by 22 foot concrete pad surrounded on three sides by a three-foot high concrete wall. Three five-foot long propane burners, mounted on the concrete walls, are used to heat the material in order to destroy the explosives.
LANL says that over 80 percent of the waste generated to be treated by the open burn unit are from machining explosive components. In 2012, LANL burned about 3,200 pounds of explosive waste or explosive-contaminated waste in 49 burns, which lasted less than 25 hours.
Public comments are due to the Environment Department on or before December 2, 2013 to Dave Cobrain, NMED-Hazardous Waste Bureau, 2905 Rodeo Park Drive East, Building 1, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505-6313; telephone (505) 476-6000 or email dave.cobrain@state.nm.us.
CCNS will be preparing sample public comments after the meeting for you to use to prepare your comments. Please stay tuned.
This has been the CCNS News Update. For more information and to receive sample public comments, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.
Mary Lou Cook Memorial – Wednesday Oct. 30th 11 a.m. – St. Francis Auditorium, 107 W. Palace Ave.
Dear Friends of MLC,
Please join in the celebration of one of Santa Fe’s (and possibly the world’s) most precious treasures, Mary Lou Cook. Mary Lou began her heavenward journey at 6:30 a.m. monday morning October 7th. It is entirely possible that she has paste-crafted part of our solar system by now. At the very least, I am sure she is whippin’ the other residents of heaven into shape.
We know the gates must have flown open for her and her angelic escorts, and who knows.. she may even be able to heal the US government from her new vantage point.
In honor of MLC, please wear your favorite hat and be colorful, after all we are saluting an extraordinarily colorful woman.
No flowers please, but you might plant a tree in her honor! We will have a table with Mary Lou’s numerous books, bookmarks, and other amazing creations to take and/or make a donation if you wish!
If you aren’t able to attend and would like, feel free to send a love note via email. Time permitting, I will read as many as I can.
(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:
Remembering CCNS Co-founder Mary Lou Cook
Mary Lou Cook, one of the twelve co-founders of CCNS, died at age 95 this week in Santa Fe. We are deeply saddened by the news, but have enjoyed reminiscing about the early days of CCNS. In the summer of 1988, we met in Mary Lou’s small calligraphy studio located at the Design Center in Santa Fe. At that time the Santa Fe Peace Center was also located in the Design Center, which was founded by Mary Lou and her peace colleague, Ann Dasburg, another CCNS co-founder. They agreed that CCNS could use the back room in the Peace Center for our nascent activities. Soon, and to their surprise, we were using all of the space because of the number of volunteers who were helping in the early efforts to stop the opening of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
Mary Lou was sometimes called our “secret weapon” in that she knew many of the elected officials who would have influence over decisions concerning WIPP and the nuclear laboratories. Over the years, she and Ann Dasburg wrote many poignant letters to the editor that helped to educate the public about our concerns.
Richard Johnson, one of the CCNS co-founders and the creator of Businesses Against WIPP, said, “Mary Lou worked tirelessly for CCNS in those early years. Her energy, fearless optimism and wisdom informed everything we did. We all loved Mary Lou Cook.”
Mary Lou established the Santa Fe Living Treasurers program in 1984. At an annual ceremony, community elders are honored for their lives and work. She was devoted to creating an Office of Peace within the New Mexico state government and spent many legislative sessions trying to accomplish that task.
Mary Lou was also a wonderful independent minister and bishop in the Eternal Life Church who married many in the community. She was an extremely talented calligrapher and artist. A sign hanging on her studio wall read, “All great art is praise.”
Sasha Pyle, one of the CCNS co-founders and who testified before Congress in 1988 about community concerns regarding the opening of WIPP, said, “Mary Lou had the knack of being firm in her convictions, even blunt, without ever losing her positive approach, which was so disarming–no matter whom she was confronting. It was a huge privilege to practice the art of activism side by side with her. She saw the world we live in as a place that needs a lot of work but is divinely full of creative possibilities.”
Mary Lou was blessed in her later years by the fine caring of her loving daughter, Courtney, who predeceased her. Services are pending.
This has been the CCNS News Update. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.
(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:
* 13 World Friendship Center Ambassadors Visit Los Alamos
Wishing to see where the atomic weapon was created that was dropped on their city, 13 World Friendship Center Ambassadors from Hiroshima, Japan, visited Los Alamos this week. http://homepage2.nifty.com/wfchiroshima/ They gathered at Ashley Pond to see the location where the bomb was created and viewed the U.S. manufacturing facilities where plutonium cores for nuclear weapons are still being made just south of the pond. The trip to New Mexico was the last leg of a three-week tour in the U.S. They spent two weeks in Oregon and Washington state.
The World Friendship Center sent the group to tell the stories of survival, hope and rebuilding of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing on August 6th, 1945. Barbara Reynolds founded The World Friendship Center in 1965 in Hiroshima, with the motto to “foster peace, one friend at a time.” Their goals are to tell the story of Hiroshima and the Hibakusha, who are the surviving victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; to promote world peace; and to work towards a nuclear-free world.
The Ambassadors included Hibakusha. One gentleman told the story of when he was a child walking to school with sister when they witnessed the bomb explode and the resulting devastation. Another was also a child who walked back into the city after the bombing to look for her sister. The Ambassadors also included others whose families and friends were directly affected by the atomic bombing in Japan. In New Mexico, they made six presentations in Albuquerque and one in Santa Fe to elementary and high school students, and students at the University of New Mexico. They also made an evening presentation at the Pax Christi Santa Fe gathering at the Santa Nino Regional Catholic School.
Ellie Voutselas, with Pax Christi Santa Fe, was the main New Mexico organizer. She said, “I found the day permeated with love and togetherness between us and our Japanese brothers and sisters, a truly inspirational experience.”
The Ambassadors also visited the historical marker at the site of the Department of Justice World War II prison camp in the Frank Ortiz Park in Santa Fe. In a moving ceremony, the Ambassadors honored the 4,555 Japanese men, many of whom were ministers, teachers, artists, journalists and businessman, who were held there.
Father John Dear, said, “It was a moving, powerful experience to accompany 13 friends from Hiroshima, including several atomic bomb survivors, to Los Alamos, the birthplace of the bomb. They inspire me to redouble my effort to work for the abolition of nuclear weapons. This is our shared hope – the pursuit of a world without war, a new world of peace and nonviolence.”
This has been the CCNS News Update. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.
