April 7, 2020

If you don't want plutonium pit production you will need to speak up. We provide a powerful way.

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Dear New Mexico activist leaders –

Right now, liberals and progressives in New Mexico are effectively "on record" as supporting a new Rocky Flats Plant for producing plutonium warhead cores ("pits") near Santa Fe.

This mission involves:

• the transport of tons of plutonium to and from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL);
  
• the processing and storage of plutonium; 
• processing, storage, transportation, and disposal of nuclear and chemical wastes;
  
• 24/7 operations;
  
• commuting and housing to support 4,000 pit-related workers (LANL's figure, not ours);
  
• construction of support infrastructure; and
  
• before long, construction of dedicated new production facilities.
  

How so? Why are liberals and progressives "on record" supporting this?

Because this factory is very much a New Mexico Democratic Party priority. Senators Heinrich and Udall have very actively supported this factory, as did our Governor when she was a congresswoman, as has Congressman Ben Ray Lujan, now a senatorial candidate.

Unless liberals and progressives find a way to effectively and publicly register their disagreement on this issue, they are effectively silent. That silence is not just taken as political assent. It is political assent.

A LANL pit factory was not a Trump Administration priority until the New Mexico congressional delegation made it one.

Not resting on their laurels, both New Mexico senators want LANL to be the ONLY pit factory. They want the entire mission for LANL, now and always.

How big of a factory? Just a "little" one, in the existing plutonium facility?

Here's the first part of your answer: Last year, Senator Heinrich successfully co-sponsored an amendment with Senator Lindsay Graham to make the Trump Administration's pit requirement -- to be producing at least 80 "war reserve" pits per year by 2030 -- a law.

Small? No.

Here's the second part of the answer: LANL's old, smallish, built-for-R&D, unsafe plutonium facility, built on a narrow, soft mesa with high seismic risk, won't support 24/7 production for long -- if ever. All parties know that. An industrial pit mission requires industrial facilities. When the political dust settles, LANL would need a dedicated new production facility for this mission. Almost every task which was done at the Rocky Flats Plant would also have to be done at LANL. Tasks require people and buildings -- a lot of them. This is not a "small" mission. It's a huge, transformative mission not just for LANL but for the region.

Some of you helped us fight off this mission for four decades. We have won again and again. But now there is mostly silence.

Just 15 years ago, senators Domenici and Bingaman, Governor Richardson, and Congressman Udall all agreed that LANL should not do this. Now our entire congressional delegation, and as far as we know the Democratic Governor, want LANL to have this mission.

The silence is deafening.

    What we would like you to do

In the present pandemic all of us are encountering new pressures of many kinds, even as we seek practical political solutions while largely physically isolated.

Right now, the Los Alamos Study Group is responding to these conditions and others -- including the quite specific nuclear assault on northern New Mexico described above -- with the Call for Sanity, Not Nuclear Production.

This Call is a manifesto and rallying point for collective engagement by businesses, organizations and churches. It is not a petition.

Your role is crucial! We need your help to recruit business and organizational endorsers. This can be fairly easily done, without physical proximity.(We don't like the term "social distancing." A better watchword is: "Physical separation, social unity.")

If we want new priorities for New Mexico, there is no better time to ask for them than right now.

Here's how to do it:

1. Read the Call and supporting short background (on the same page).
   
2. Jot down a short list of businesses and organizations you think might endorse the Call. This is your starting call and email list.
   
3. Compose a short script you can use if you have to leave a phone message. Here's an example:
   

Hello my name is _______________________.

I am calling to encourage [business or organization name] to endorse the Los Alamos Study Group's "Call for Sanity, Not Nuclear Production." It's posted at lasg.org in the red "Take Action" box, right at the top of the home page.

It is a critically important time to express our community's resolve in the face of the Los Alamos Lab's proposed expansion, primarily for production of plutonium warhead cores ("pits").

As you may know there’s also a possible expansion of LANL into the City of Santa Fe, indirectly supporting pit production.

The Study Group currently has two resolutions opposing these actions before Santa Fe’s City Council.

If opposing pit production is something you support, please visit our website (lasg.org) and fill out the business endorsement form online.

It takes just a minute. With enough businesses and organizations, it will definitely make an impact. Don't forget to hit the final "Submit" button! (They will get a confirmatory email.)

Thank you!

4. Keep a record of who you have called and their responses. Tell us how you are doing by phone (505-265-1200) or email. Contact us if you have questions or problems!
5. Ask interested businesses and organizations you speak to if they would like to help with outreach for this Call.
   
6. We will soon post a list of endorsing businesses and organizations. Your contacts will be able to see those too.
7. Interested businesses and organizations can take further actions right now. They can:

• Write letters to editors (LTEs) for different security priorities, opposing pit production, opposing LANL in Midtown, etc. You can draw talking points from our letters and bulletins. This primer may be helpful. An LTE campaign can be very, very powerful and is "easy" to do during a pandemic -- as easy as anything is right now.
  

• Write letters to Santa Fe city councilors asking them to introduce and endorse our two city council resolutions. One calls for a LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS); the other opposes any LANL presence in the Santa Fe Midtown project and prohibits City contracts with nuclear weapons agencies and prime contractors.

In 1994, we brought together 60 organizations and tribes to ask for a LANL SWEIS. We got one, with extra hearings and eventually, a Record of Decision limiting LANL pit production to a maximum of 20 pits per year, which LANL has never come close to.

In 2005, hundreds of businesses, organizations, and churches joined the Call for Nuclear Disarmament, upon which the current Call is based. Not coincidentally, in 2008 the 20 pit per year limit was reiterated by DOE. Public, local government, and tribal engagement on these issues has created a three-decade social contract that has limited pit production at LANL, which has averaged only about 1 pit per year. We have explained many times why pit production has not been, and is not now, "necessary" in any sense. It is a crucial foundation for a vast nuclear arms enterprise that embodies inverted national security priorities.

Thank you. We look forward to hearing from you.

Greg, Trish, Michelle, and Lydia, for the Study Group