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December 7, 2019 Permalink for this letter. Please forward! Other Letters
This letter: Please come tomorrow to Collected Works Bookstore, 202 Galisteo Street (map), Santa Fe, 11 am: Developer to present plans for Midtown Santa Fe campus: will they include nuclear weapons research, training, manufacturing, administration? *** Please come to this presentation if you can. Numbers are important, if only to listen. "A stitch in time saves nine." There is very little time before the City selects finalists for development. Plans are firming up now. *** Dear friends – As discussed in our 11/29/19 letter and Bulletin 264, the City of Santa Fe is in the process of selecting finalists to be the "master developer" for its 64-acre Midtown Campus -- formerly the College of Santa Fe -- and possibly some adjacent parcels. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the nation's semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency within the Department of Energy (DOE), has applied for "master developer" of the parcel and is openly or cryptically present in some of the other proposals as well. In situations where controversy could ensue (such as this one), NNSA's nuclear weapons work is usually euphemized as "research." NNSA does do some "defense nuclear nonproliferation" (about 13% of its total) but the bulk of NNSA's work is the development and production of nuclear warheads and bombs, which is and always has been the sole raison d'etre of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), its life blood, bones, and muscle. A partnership led by Mr. Allan Affeldt ("Central Park Santa Fe"), who will speak tomorrow, is seeking the "master developer" role for its $400 million project on what is now the City's (quite valuable) land. To his credit, Affeldt is the only applicant who has been at all forthcoming in the City's secretive, privatized process, which will select finalists by January 15 for master developer without revealing a) what each of the plans are or b) precisely who are the participants and what roles they have. Why "secretive," when there has been significant public involvement in visioning this project? Because we have been told by some who took part in meetings about the future of this site that no role for LANL or NNSA was ever discussed or endorsed. As far as we know, any such role is new (or newly-revealed). That such a role could even be contemplated has caught all of us here at the Study Group quite by surprise. I don't think I need to explain here in full the political and cultural impact that NNSA's involvement in these proposals, let alone the possible "master" role, would have on Santa Fe. In passing it is worth noting that any "high tech" campus, or "“Silicon Santa Fe” tech campus" as Affeldt has described that part of his plan, will find itself overshadowed politically and institutionally by LANL. What is more, California's Silicon Valley has created not wealth, but poverty for many nearby, an observation we should all investigate very carefully before buying into the notion that subsidized "high tech" development would benefit the Santa Fe public. For my part, I see very little to like in most of the proposals discussed in the newspaper. Santa Fe -- and New Mexico -- badly needs a campus devoted to the arts of sustainability and community resilience. We all need to think very carefully about the global warming and environmental denialism embodied in some of these plans, as well as the role of the profit motive. It is after all a massive subsidy to investors, who are writing the future of Santa Fe in their plans, as some of them (like Affeldt) fully realize and state. The process is also terrible. Citizens should be able to see the whole menu from which the City (and its contractors) is selecting. It is important to send a signal RIGHT NOW to Mr. Affeldt, other potential developers, and the City, that any LANL or NNSA involvement will be highly controversial, gravely threatening the viability of any proposal that incorporates nuclear weapons institutions. Why is NNSA even considering stepping into this hornet's nest? We can think of several reasons. Fundamentally, it is because the Trump Administration, New Mexico Democrats, and many others want LANL to become a "small" (for now) successor to the Rocky Flats Plant, making plutonium warhead cores ("pits") on a reliable, industrial basis. To do this, LANL needs, first of all, to expand its core and subcontractor staff by thousands of new people. There simply isn't room at LANL for all the people LANL wants to hire. Nor is there adequate housing in Los Alamos County. So LANL is counting on Santa Fe County to house, provide services for, and to educate the children of its expanding staff. Now NNSA wants the City and its taxpayers to subsidize its facilities too. Please come tomorrow, to learn, to show concern with silence or with questions, and to make connections for the next stages of rising protest. No LANL in Santa Fe! Greg, Trish, and the Los Alamos Study Group |
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