October 23, 2023

Santa Fe City Council: Pass Resolution Against Pit Production

LaJicarita, Oct 23, 2023

Open Letter by Jean Nichols

Dear Honorable Mayor and Esteemed SF Council Members,

Please put the Resolution Against Pit Production at LANL and its incursions into Santa Fe as presented by the Los Alamos Study Group on your next council meeting agenda. I do not live in Santa Fe but it is one of my main places of business and I live close by in an area affected by LANL so I feel my comments should be given as much consideration as if I were a direct constituent.

I understand that you are being approached by powerful forces that expound on the virtues of our nuclear deterrence as being a road to security but this is not true. Nuclear proliferation does not make the US or the world a safer place. Just the opposite is true and that should be painfully obvious as we are now closer than ever before to nuclear war, either by accident or by intent. Nor are the new weapon cores (pits) only for the already existing stockpile: research says they are also for a new generation of weapons. The US and the other nuclear nation states have enough weapons to destroy the planet many times over and the current "cold war" tensions and proliferation are getting more dangerous with each news cycle.

The other main reason you may think you should support LANL's mission is the money and the jobs it brings. The money that floods into Los Alamos never pulls any of the surrounding counties out of poverty. A study funded by the University of New Mexico shows the opposite is true. Many of us don't have reliable cell service, even in Dixon where many lab employees now reside. Most local residents rely on food banks and child poverty is the highest in the nation. A few people have good paying jobs but it's a sad fact that this is the best our economy can offer. If you look at all the illness and cancer that is a result of the work at the Lab, the benefit of those jobs disappears. In truth, LANL should be paying health insurance for all of us downwinders. Additionally, the pipeline of our youth being lured into craft jobs at the Lab is even more disturbing. Are they told of the dangers or the alternatives? Tech jobs could be had in solar and wind and other industries that actually benefit New Mexico and humanity.

But the third reason for you to adopt this resolution and the one that I would like to stress is this. While Santa Fe (City of Faith) remains an art and culture destination, we are not on anyone’s target for terrorism or nuclear strikes, but as soon as we have an operating bomb factory we will be high on the list of targets. This will be your burden to bear as our public leaders. And as traffic, congestion, and housing costs increase, not to mention the lack of enough water to support all this development, our fair state and City Different become less attractive to visitors.

Many times in the past, resolutions for peace and against nuclear weapons have been passed, but perhaps they are just sitting in files. We need this one to make its way to Congress, which apparently thinks our beautiful state is all in favor of being a national sacrifice zone for all things nuclear. We need to let them know that this is not the case. Most people are unaware of the momentous plans under way in Los Alamos and everyone I have talked to who learns of it is surprised and outraged, although many do not think they have a say. This is even true of the workers at the Lab who I have spoken to. They want to keep their jobs but not on weapon production.

Thank you for your consideration and I look forward to seeing this Resolution on the next commission meeting agenda.