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April 4, 2023

Reminder: Town Hall in Santa Fe tonight, 6:30 pm (come early if you want to speak), bring signs. Talking points: "No pits here, now, ever."

Key points:

  1. Come to tonight's Town Hall and ask your friends to come.

  2. Come early and sign up if you want to speak.

  3. If possible bring a harmless (e.g. paper or cloth, no sticks!) sign with a simple message, such as "No pits!" or "No pits -- here, now, or ever" or "No pit factory at LANL!"

  4. Attend in person, not by Zoom.

  5. Issues related to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) are linked to, but distinct from, the question of whether Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) becomes a plutonium warhead core ("pit") factory. Per DOE and NNSA, in the event of a conflict transuranic (TRU) waste from pit production will always take precedence over legacy waste and surplus plutonium waste from all sites in the U.S., in transportation and disposal. There will always be space at WIPP for TRU waste from pit production. The federal government will never allow pit production to be stymied by a lack of TRU waste disposal capacity.

  6. The Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) process for LANL now underway is not an honest, democratic process that will provide citizens with a way to "let their voices be heard" about nuclear weapons policy. Don't be suckered into thinking it is. It is a purely administrative process -- a box NNSA must tick -- not a democratic one.

  7. The proposed "dilute and dispose" (D&D) approach to surplus plutonium is unnecessarily expensive, time-consuming, risky for workers, and environmentally impactful. It wastes space in WIPP. Oxidizing tons of plutonium metal in LANL's old plutonium facility is a bad idea. Building a new plutonium facility for this mission or for pit production is a terrible idea. Simpler, safer, cheaper, better alternatives are available for surplus plutonium. 

  8. None of the local environmental and safety protections and the environmental cleanup that most of us seek, as well as the minimization of hazardous materials transportation, will be possible if LANL is transformed into a plutonium manufacturing and processing hub. Political support for plutonium pit manufacturing and the development of a "plutonium workforce" ("jobs!") are the main reasons LANL is being considered as a plutonium processing hub despite its physical limitations. In 2018, in response to an NNSA plan that might assign the pit mission to the Savannah River Site (SRS), the New Mexico delegation made sure LANL was designated as the "Plutonium Science and Production Center of Excellence for the United States." It is in part the perceived acceptance of pit production which brings still other dirty missions to the Santa Fe area.

  9. The LANL pit production mission is in trouble. It is not "cast in concrete." It did not begin in 1996 -- that was explicitly an "interim," technology sustainment mission (see slide 9) --  but rather only in 2020, in the last months of the Trump Administration. Pit policy is currently under review by the Nuclear Weapons Council (which includes NNSA), DoD, and congressional committees.

Friends --

We hope that many of you are able to come to the Town Hall being hosted this evening by Santa Fe County. It is a rare opportunity to speak to audiences near and far, with your words and your signs, and your presence.

There will be many problems discussed (having the world's best-funded nuclear weapons facility in your back yard brings a lot of problems), so if you want to get the message across that you don't want LANL to be a pit factory your mere presence will not be enough. You will have to use words.

Hopefully you will be able to speak when your turn comes up but time could be limited. Come early and sign up if you want to speak. 

We urge you to bring a sign, perhaps made of paper or cloth or other harmless material which could not be interpreted as presenting any security issues. 

It might say, "No pits!" That's pretty brief but it would do. Or "No pits -- here, now, or ever." Or "No pit factory at LANL!" Be as creative as you like, obviously.

We provide some limited background and talking points here, but the key thing is to get across that one simple message above. Let nothing distract us from that.

We spoke earlier today with County Commission Chair Anna Hansen, who did the hard work of making this meeting happen and deserves credit for that. She emphasized that this will be an opportunity to ask questions and to expect real answers, as well as to make comments.

Some questions can be answered but please also be aware that questions also have a tendency to place the questioner in a supplicatory, weak position, given the large number of people present. It is not the same as asking a question one-on-one, or in a small group. Inevitably, asking questions of "The Authority," who is also the one with all the money and the one who is acting, is more like being a subject, without the agency a citizen would have. Usually (but not always) asking a question in a forum like this represents a lost opportunity. Well-considered comments are more valuable, frankly.

As for us here, we aren't going to ask questions per se but rather will be speaking as part of a longer conversation we are having and we all can have, in multiple times and places and modalities, aimed at changing official minds about the LANL pit production mission, a mission inherited from the Trump Administration. We want to convert and awaken these and other officials, and other decisionmakers in Washington DC, to the realization that making pits at LANL here and now is a terrible idea.

It is possible to "attend" this meeting remotely and to submit questions using this Zoom link. We urge you to come in person.

Commissioner Hansen tells us that remote "attendees" will be able to ask questions, per Department of Energy (DOE)/National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) request. While this appears to be more "convenient," do you see how disempowering this is? There is no concept of democracy here. It is pure administration.

"Attending remotely" is oxymoronic. Those two words have opposite meanings. Disembodied "attendance" has little or no political impact, in proportion to the minimal effort and commitment it requires. It is better suited for subjects than for citizens. To then use this highly-limited form of appearance to ask filtered questions of "The Authorities" is like pouring water on the fire we need to keep citizenship warm (or rather revive it from its present moribund state).

The administrative public relations processes advanced by DOE and NNSA in every possible venue are toxic to health and well-being. It's an addiction. 

(The true "space of appearance" where people can gather together to discuss, act, and build the future is fragile. A "town hall meeting" is only a meeting to the extent people meet. Right now, the French understand this better than us; see the recent "French Streets and American Sofas," Patrick Lawrence).

Regarding point 5. above, pit production generates TRU waste. At a production rate of 80 pits per year (ppy), DOE and NNSA calculate that pit production will generate 14.4 cubic meters (m3) of TRU waste per pit. This waste will go to WIPP, regardless. As DOE and NNSA say (p. 65), "In addition, use of WIPP capacity for national security missions such as pit production would be given priority in the [WIPP capacity] allocation process."

Pit production is NNSA's largest endeavor and the largest endeavor the agency has ever had. NNSA is DOE's largest component. The Department of Defense (DoD) -- more than 20 times bigger in dollar terms -- is adamant, as is Congress, that the U.S. have a significant pit production capability. There is zero chance that any President will fail to request, or Congress fail to support, construction of an adequate pit production capability. (LANL does not and cannot provide that.)

The present point is simply this: the federal government will never allow pit production to be stymied by a lack of TRU waste disposal capacity.

Best wishes,

Greg, Trish, and the Study Group

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