CCNS Update

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...

Each week you depend on CCNS to provide you with the latest nuclear safety issues through the radio, on the internet and by email. We’ve been producing the weekly CCNS News Update for over 35 years! We need your financial support to keep our programs going.

Los Alamos National Laboratory plans to prepare an environmental assessment to address the hexavalent chromium contamination in the deep regional drinking water aquifer. In comments submitted this week, the Communities for Clean Water recommended that LANL conduct a more detailed environmental impact statement in order to protect the regional drinking water aquifer and the Environmental Protection...

You are invited to join the Ohio Nuclear Free Network for its important virtual public forum, Radioactive Contamination, Environment and Public Health and the Future of the Portsmouth Nuclear Site, on Saturday, June 10 th beginning at 10:45 am Mountain Time. The in-person and virtual forum offers an opportunity to learn from world-renowned experts about contamination at the Piketon, Ohio site and...

CCNS has prepared sample public comments you can modify about the scope of a new draft site-wide environmental impact statement for Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. Comments may be submitted electronically to SNL- SWEIS@nnsa.doe.gov through Monday, June 5 th , 2023.

In response to the lack of concrete progress on nuclear disarmament by the G7 leaders in Hiroshima last week, Ivana Nikolić Hughes, Ph. D., and President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, wrote the following op-ed in Common Dreams. We provide excerpts:

On May 15 th , four Archbishops, including Archbishop John C. Wester of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, sent a letter to the Group of Seven leaders gathering for a three-day summit in Hiroshima, Japan to urge the leaders to take concrete steps toward nuclear disarmament.

The New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission not only denied Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE) and CCNS standing to challenge the groundwater discharge permit DP-1132, but also denied the public any opportunity to provide comment during Tuesday’s hearing.

The health of the Rio Grande watershed in the area of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is at stake. The protection of the 3,000 square mile sole source drinking water aquifer is at stake. LANL has contaminated it with hexavalent chromium and the plume is migrating towards the Pueblo de San Ildefonso, the Rio Grande, and the Buckman wells and diversion facility. Every drop of water is precious...

Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE) and CCNS will be before the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission on Tuesday, May 9 th at the New Mexico State Capitol to argue that they have standing to challenge the groundwater discharge permit, DP-1132, for the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The Hearing Officer, who reports to the Commission, recomm...

There has not been an adequate examination of the seismic vulnerabilities and increasing risk of seismic activity in the area of Valles Caldera, with Los Alamos National Laboratory on the eastern slope.

It was revealed at the Tuesday, April 11 th monthly meeting of the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission that the Department of Energy (DOE) had approached Kelsey Rader, an at-large member of the Commission, on Good Friday about a job with DOE. If Commissioner Rader took a position with DOE, she would be the third official who was hired away by DOE during the Commission’s review of DOE’s New...

It’s time to break the silence about the permitting of the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Since 1963, the Facility has handled, treated and stored radioactive and hazardous liquid waste generated at the Plutonium Facility, where the triggers, or plutonium pits, for nuclear weapons are fabricated.

The National Nuclear Security Administrator Jill Hruby and Senior Advisor to the Department of Energy Office of Environment Management Ike White will be in Santa Fe next week for a public town hall. It is essential that they hear from you!

For nearly three years, the public has requested a town hall type of event in which officials from the Department of Energy (DOE) and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would answer questions about the plans to expand operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).

As if there is not enough going on, it’s time to get your personalized comments into the Department of Energy (DOE). It has published its unsupported draft environmental impact statement about DOE’s proposal for handling more than 48 metric tons of surplus plutonium – and maybe more – for decades to come.

A review of the Department of Energy (DOE) National Environmental Policy Act website shows that it is behind schedule in providing the public with up-to-date  site-wide environmental impact statements, or SWEISs, for the four main sites involved in DOE’s proposed surplus plutonium plans.

What would you do with more than 30 metric tons of “surplus” plutonium in the form of triggers for nuclear weapons? The Department of Energy (DOE) has been working to find a solution for at least 30 years.