Santa Fe City Council Must Consider Impacts of Eberline Operations on the South Meadows Open Space

The Santa Fe City Council will hold a special meeting on Wednesday, February 1^st at 7 pm to consider the proposed rezoning of the 22 acres of open space on South Meadows. City of Santa Fe Notice of Meeting 20230201 CCNS urges to you contact your city councilors and encourage them to vote no on the rezoning proposal.  https://santafenm.gov/elected-officials

There are too many unanswered questions about possible contamination of the open space remaining from decades of operations of the industrial Eberline / ThermoFisher radiation detection manufacturing facility to the south.  https://www.sfreporter.com/news/2020/01/08/less-radioactive/   The proposed rezoning would allow Homewise to build homes and condominiums on the site.  https://lospradosnm.com/

The open space is located near the intersection of Airport Road and South Meadows on the south side of Santa Fe.  The surrounding area has the highest population density, the fewest acres of open space, and the greatest number of children 14 and under.  There are several schools within blocks of the abandoned manufacturing facility and a 200-unit apartment building is going up diagonal to it. 

In 1953, Eberline began manufacturing radiation detectors.  In the early 1990s, the Environmental Protection Agency opened a Superfund investigation of the site.  In 2007, manufacturing ceased.  In that same year, 800 sealed radiation sources containing plutonium or cesium were removed from the site.  In 2009, EPA reopened the Superfund investigation.

We offer a precautionary tale that more environmental investigation is needed now.

Let’s look to the northwest to DP Road in Los Alamos.  DP Road runs parallel to the airport on the next mesa to the south.  On the south side of DP Road there was a Manhattan Project dump, called Material Disposal Area B.  It was excavated in the late 2000s with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding.  Because of the uncertainty of the dump’s contents, CCNS urged the Department of Energy to expand the proposed cleanup area.  That was not done.  http://www.nuclearactive.org/news/122906.html ,  http://www.nuclearactive.org/news/010507.html ,   http://nuclearactive.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/HWB-RPD-PN-English-LANL-Nov-12-Meeting-1.pdf

Los Alamos County began construction of affordable housing projects on both sides of DP Road near the dump.   Sure enough, when contractors were digging a new sewer line, they dug up radioactive and hazardous waste.

Families have been living in the housing.  Investigations are on going.  Each investigation reveals more waste.  https://n3b-la.com/middle-dp-road/

What can we learn from the DP Road example?  A thorough investigation is needed about possible contamination of the 22-acres in Santa Fe.  The fact that EPA started two Superfund investigations reveals that unanswered questions remain.

Please contact your Santa Fe city councilors and urge them to vote no on the rezoning.  https://santafenm.gov/elected-officials

1. Friday, January 27^th from noon to 1 pm – Join the weekly peaceful protest for nuclear disarmament on the corners of Alameda and Guadalupe in downtown Santa Fe with Veterans for Peace, CCNS, Nuclear Watch NM, Loretto Community, Pax Christi and others.

2. Monday, January 30^th, 2023 from 5 to 8 pm Mountain – Online (ZoomGov) public hearing about the DOE/NNSA Surplus Plutonium Disposition Program. Each speaker will have three minutes to make comments.  The meeting URL will be posted on the NNSA’s NEPA Reading Room – https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/nnsa-nepa-reading-room

3. Four-week online World BEYOND War book club with Vincent Intondi about his book, African Americans Against the Bomb, on Fridays, February 3, 10, 17, 24, 2023 at noon MT. Limited to 18 participants.  For more information and to register:  https://worldbeyondwar.org/events/

4. March 9 and 10, 2023 – ICAN and ICAN Norway are hosting the ICAN Act on It Forum in Oslo, Norway. You are invited to join campaigners, youth, politicians, academics and others interested in nuclear disarmament to amplify voices demanding the end of unlawful and inhumane nuclear weapons.  March 2023 is the 10^th anniversary of the first conference on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, hosted by Norway.  https://www.icannorway.no/

5. If you missed Myrriah Gómez in Conversation with Alicia Inez Guzman about her new book, Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos, at Collected Works on January 13, 2023, you can watch it at:  https://www.facebook.com/collectedworksbookstore

6. “Risky Returns,” is a new PAX and ICAN report that answers the question: Will producing nuclear weapons be a safe investment opportunity in the long-term?  The companies still building nuclear weapons and their investors are getting called out.  https://www.icanw.org/fewer_long_term_investments_in_nuclear_weapons_producers_dont_bank_on_the_bomb?utm_campaign=2022_dbotb_launch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ican   The report provides an overview of investments in 2022 of 24 companies heavily involved in the production of nuclear weapons for the arsenals of China, France, India, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the USA. #nuclearban #divestment #DontBankontheBomb #bizHumanRights

Tags: 22 acres, a precautionary tale, Airport Road, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, ARRA, cesium, Department of Energy, DOE, DP Road, Eberline, Environmental Protection Agency, Homewise, Los Alamos, Material Disposal Area B, MDA B, plutonium, possible contamination, radiation detection equipment, Santa Fe City Council, sealed radiation sources, South Meadows Open Space, Superfund investigations, ThermoFisher