CCNS Update

Please mark your calendar to attend one or more of these meetings or submit public comments before the deadlines. Links and more information are available under Did You Know? at nuclearactive.org

As promised, a second public meeting on the proposed Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) upgrade project to expand electrical power capacity will begin at 4 pm on Thursday, February 15 th at the Santa Fe Community College. The first virtual and in-person public meeting was held at the same location on January 11 th .

Twenty years ago, the hexavalent chromium plume was discovered in the regional aquifer 1,000 feet below ground surface at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Since then the debate about how to remove the dangerous hexavalent chromium from the regional drinking water aquifer has been ongoing between LANL, the New Mexico Environment Department, and the public.

In July 2022, the Department of Energy (DOE) awarded the Tularosa Basin Range Services, a Bechtel affiliate, a 10-year, $3 billion dollar management and operating contract for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) to continue the disposal of Cold War radioactive and hazardous wastes from the fabrication of plutonium-based nuclear weapons.

Monday, January 22 marks the third anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This year’s focus is the lie of deterrence. For decades policy makers have declared nuclear weapons necessary to deter enemy attacks, all the while ignoring the humanitarian costs of the nuclear arms race and the global devastation promised by the nuclear weapons should deterrence fail.

In an utterly confusing move, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) released an environmental assessment for public review and comment that claims it contains the final remedy for the cleanup of the hexavalent chromium plume in the regional drinking water aquifer.

On December 19 th , Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) released a draft environmental assessment that would allow the installation and operation of a 14-mile, 115 kiloVolt overhead electrical line basically in parallel to the two electrical lines that already cross the Caja del Rio Plateau and the Rio Grande to the Pajarito Plateau, where LANL is located. It is named the Electrical Power Capaci...

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has a habit of releasing environmental documents requiring public comment during the winter holiday season. That habit continued this winter with not one, but two draft environmental assessments (EA). One involves the hexavalent chromium plume in Mortandad Canyon. The second, and the topic of this Update, is the proposed Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade Proje...

An on-going David versus Goliath fight occurred last week during a public hearing before the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board, a board charged to prevent or abate air pollution.

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...