CCNS Update

For the first time, an agreement was made by the States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to challenge the false narrative of nuclear deterrence. It holds that possession of nuclear weapons will prevent another nation with nuclear weapons from attacking.

Since at least 1999 Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has proposed running an additional 12-mile, 115 kilovolt electrical line to the two that already cross the Caja del Rio and the Rio Grande to the Pajarito Plateau, claiming it needs the additional power line to run its supercomputers.

You are invited to join the Global Day of Action Against Nuclear Weapons on Sunday, November 26 th at 2 pm on the Santa Fe Plaza. Come with your friends, family and colleagues and call for an end to nuclear weapons by bringing attention to the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the TPNW.

What would happen to the fields of amber waves of grain in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota that feed so many, as well as the area’s population, should a concerted nuclear attack occur in those same fields housing silos of intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs?

From Monday, November 27 th to Friday, December 1 st , the States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will meet at the United Nations in New York to review progress on the treaty’s implementation and agree on further action to strengthen it. This will be the second meeting of the States Parties.

Over one hundred years ago, in 1918, the world celebrated peace as a universal principle. The first World War had just ended and nations mourning their dead collectively called for an end to all wars. Armistice Day was born and was designated as "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated.”

Please join the effort to submit public comments in support of the excavation of a 12-acre unlined dump at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Public comments are due to the New Mexico Environment Department by Monday, November 6 th at 5 pm Mountain Time.

Holtec International, a corporation with a license for a consolidated interim storage facility in southeastern New Mexico for 173,600 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel from atomic power plants, submitted a secret application to the Department of Energy seeking at least $2 billion dollars to restart Palisades, a closed nuclear reactor in Michigan. Holtec’s request also includes plans to build...

There are two measurements the Department of Energy (DOE) uses for the waste shipped for disposal in the deep underground repository at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), located 26 miles east of Carlsbad, New Mexico. The first measurement is the most important, which is the volume of waste measured in cubic meters. A cubic meter fits into a cube measuring 39 inches in width, depth and height...

Increasing numbers of workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have tested positive for radiation exposure both at LANL and on foreign soils. Six employees and the equipment they used tested positive for exposures to radioactive Iodine-125 following official foreign travel to an unknown location in March. They traveled on commercial airlines and in personal vehicles.

The comment period is open for the public to review the New Mexico Environment Department’s recommendation to excavate the 11.8 acre unlined dump, called Material Disposal Area C, or MDA C, at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Public comments are due Monday, November 6 th .

On Wednesday, September 19 th , the landmark Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons had been signed by almost half of all countries in the world after a ceremony at the United Nations General Assembly in New York where Sri Lanka acceded to the Treaty and the Bahamas signed it.

Friday, September 22 nd will be the last opportunity to make your public comments about the changes to the operating permit for the nuclear waste dump, called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP. WIPP is a deep geologic repository for plutonium- contaminated radioactive waste from the production of nuclear weapons, located 26 miles east of Carlsbad, New Mexico.

In a July 2023 report the federal Government Accountability Office recommended that a third-party facilitator be brought in to improve the relationship and build trust between the New Mexico Environment Department and the Department of Energy (DOE) as they try to resolve outstanding cleanup issues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

CCNS provided the following response to a recent Santa Fe New Mexican Our View: “In response to Stop Stalling: Clean up chromium plume, no one is stalling. The plume does need immediate attention and does need to be analyzed with a computer model that everyone can use. The consequences of getting the cleanup of the toxic hexavalent chromium plume wrong would be disastrous.

Did you know that in 2008 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated the 3,000 square mile Española Basin System as a Sole Source Drinking Water Aquifer? One ongoing concern is that Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) sits on its western edge, near the Valles Caldera. And a recent dispute between the New Mexico Environment Department and the Department of Energy about the LANL hexavale...

On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 peaceful demonstrators from across the United States of America joined together for the first March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. They came together to demand voting rights and equal opportunity for African Americans and to appeal for an end to racial segregation and discrimination.

More than 100 medical journals, including the Lancet, the British Medical Journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the JAMA, have issued a joint call for urgent steps to decrease the growing danger of nuclear war and to move rapidly to the elimination of nuclear weapons. At a time of expanded fighting in Ukraine and increased tensions in Korea, leaders of the global health community under...

Near the end of World War II, on August 6 th , 1945, the United States dropped a uranium atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, the United States dropped a plutonium atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. To acknowledge the harm done in the development, testing and use of the atomic bombs by the United States, two events are taking place on Saturday, August 5 th in Albuquerque and one event o...

A delegation from the Archdioceses of Santa Fe and Seattle is embarking on a transformative Pilgrimage of Peace to the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Akita, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, from July 31 to August 12, 2023. The delegation comprises Most Reverend John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe, and Most Reverend Paul D. Etienne, Archbishop of Seattle, along with representatives from various organi...

Rain or shine, please join diverse organizations and individuals at the Inaugural Albu(r)querque Peace Festival on Saturday, August 5 th from 2 to 6 pm at Roosevelt Park for music, speakers, informational tables and food trucks.. The Albu(r)querque Peace Festival is an effort by multiple organizations to bring attention to the danger of nuclear weapons, the horror of nuclear war, and promote effor...

You are invited to come to a free in-person and live stream public vigil entitled “From Reflection to Action: An Interfaith Remembrance of the Trinity Test” on Sunday, July 16 th from 4 to 6 pm at Santa Maria de la Paz Church at 11 College Avenue in Santa Fe. The vigil will commemorate the 78 th year since the detonation of the first atomic weapon, called The Gadget, at the Trinity Test Site in so...

To commemorate the 78 th anniversary of the first detonation of an atomic weapon at the nearby Trinity Test Site, the complete elimination of nuclear weapons must be prioritized. A free in-person and livestreamed public event entitled “From Reflection to Action: An Interfaith Remembrance of the Trinity Test” will be held at the Santa Maria de la Paz Community Hall in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Sunda...

CCNS and five other non-governmental organizations and one individual successfully negotiated a settlement agreement last week to revise the draft ten-year hazardous waste renewal permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). Also at the table were the New Mexico Environment Department and the co-Permittees, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, LLC (SIM...

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