However, implementation of the increased pit production mission [in the NAA and all the other alternatives] will introduce notable operational changes compared to existing operations. For example, there will be changes in employment, radiological doses to workers and the public, radiological waste quantities, and transportation of nuclear materials/wastes. There will also be an increase in wastes associated with DD&D activities. These DD&D wastes include construction and demolition debris, radioactive wastes (low-level radioactive waste [LLW], mixed LLW [MLLW], and TRU waste), and hazardous wastes (including asbestos-contaminated wastes).

[Ted] Wyka [Los Alamos Field Office Manager] again noted that NNSA doesn’t set policy but implements policy defined by the President or the Department of War.

“This SWEIS is based on a nuclear posture from 2018 or 2019 which had up to 30 pits here in Los Alamos by 2028 with a surge capacity of 80 as well as including Savannah River for its 50. So we’ve designed for at least 30 with a surge capacity of 80 and if our requirements are increased or changed, then we would do a supplemental analysis to confirm whatever numbers we’re supposed to go to to implement those national security requirements,” Wyka said.

"This environmental analysis is incomplete and therefore inaccurate. NNSA knows it may be insufficient and has said so on the record. Publishing work they did last year to "check off an environmental box" was just the easiest and fastest way to move forward. 

"Administration officials have told us that the overarching nuclear weapons policy in this Administration is to "go fast," and that is what they are doing.

"Omission of LANL's actual pit mission in this EIS is however just the tip of much larger anti-environmental iceberg. This EIS comes over five years after the actual decision to build a plutonium bomb factory at Los Alamos was made, in 2020. No factual EIS at all preceded that decision, as we said at the time. Since then, dozens of projects have been quietly approved and implemented without any environmental analysis. This week's analysis follows, rather than precedes, the main decisions it supposedly was to advise. 

"Now that NNSA has this document, we can liken it to a big deck of environmental 'get out of jail free' cards, which NNSA can now play whenever they need to. There's no sincere attempt to protect the environment involved. The Expanded Operations Alternative will actually destroy much of LANL's environment, and place increasing stress on the environment of the whole region. It's there in black and white for those who care to read it. 

"No one should think that with the publication of this SWEIS, the environmental and policy issues associated with LANL's transformation into a factory are closed. They aren't. They are just beginning. We hope to help NNSA discover it has made a mistake.  

"LANL's pit mission is a national blunder that began under the first Trump Administration, continued under Biden, and is now being accelerated in Trump's second term. We believe it will end in tears. We urge all parties to join us in opposing it, starting at stopthebomb.org."