Plutonium Pit Production

“Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers–nuclear war and climate change–that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond. The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.”

Nuclear bomb production is not a deterrent. Accidents happen, have happened and will happen again. We are living on borrowed time.

For example, two of the most famous close encounters of a nuclear war:

  1. 1. 1962: Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, a Soviet Navy officer, is credited with preventing a Soviet nuclear strike (and, presumably, all-out nuclear war) during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
  2. 2. 1983: Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov was a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defense Forces who played a key role in the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident and saved the world (from an all-out nuclear war).

Los Alamos Nuclear Lab’s primary purpose is to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Plutonium pit warhead production will not make the United States or the world safe. In addition, the laboratory sits on sacred Native American land that was “borrowed” for the Manhattan Project. It needs to be cleaned of all toxicity and returned to the Native Americans, its rightful owners.

The United States already has a large arsenal of nuclear weapons. It has plenty of plutonium pit warheads and enough nuclear weapons to decimate most of the world’s population. There is no reason to make more. The only sustainable economy is investments in education, electric vehicle transportation, health care, renewable energy and an economy based on peace and the welfare of all.

We must support Pope Francis and his recent proclamation: “A world without nuclear weapons is possible and necessary.” We must also support the former president of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, and his address to the United Nations: “Nuclear weapons must be destroyed. We must rid ourselves of this threat.”

SUMMARY OF RECENT NNSA/NEPA COMMENTS ON PIT PRODUCTION AT LOS ALAMOS LAB AND SAVANNAH RIVER SITE

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires the opportunity for public comment on major federal proposals.

  1. Most recently, on June 2nd, Nuclear Watch New Mexico submitted formal 48-page comments on NNSA’s draft environmental impact statement on plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site SRS available here

    1. Also recommended: comments by Tri-Valley CAREs and SRS Watch.

  2. On May 26 NukeWatch submitted formal comments on a draft “Supplement Analysis” dealing with seismic issues at the Y-12 Plant near Oak Ridge, TN, available here

    1. NNSA was compelled to prepare that Supplement Analysis due to ongoing litigation by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, NukeWatch and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The main issue is NNSA’s planned continued use of two old contaminated facilities previously slated for decontamination and decommissioning to help produce nuclear weapons “secondaries” that put the “H” in H-bomb.

Also Recommended:

3. Finally, on May 9 NukeWatch submitted formal NEPA comment on a draft Supplement Analysis on plutonium pit production at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), available here

Also recommended: comments by Tri-Valley CAREs and SRS Watch.