Previously (10/15/26): Report-back from this week's City Council meeting; press conference Monday; the labs' career temptation facing young people

Dear friends -- 

Good afternoon everybody. 

First, we had a high-quality press conference at City Hall this past Monday, October 19 -- high-quality, that is, as regards our eloquent guest speakers (video). Only a few people came and no media attended, although a related article in the Santa Fe New Mexican followed ("DOE approves Savannah River plutonium project construction," Oct 20 (posted at that link with Greg's comments). 

Second, we hope some of you will come and speak at the Santa Fe City Council meeting this coming Wednesday, October 28. The time and place are as usual (7:00 pm, come early if you can; City Hall, 200 Lincoln Ave.). You will have 2 minutes to speak. 

It is surprising what can be said in that short time period, and it is a good opportunity to hone your speaking skills. You can see prior testimony at our YouTube channel. We ourselves will try to do something a little different and creative on Wednesday. 

If you care about nuclear weapons -- say, about the new nuclear arms race, or about the growth of militarism in our society and in Santa Fe, which is very much now a "thing" -- and you live locally, there is no better place to demonstrate that concern that at the Council. 

As Mary Madley put it, if you care about nuclear weapons, you will sooner or later see that LANL is a boil which must be lanced. Sooner, we hope. 

There is definitely some media interest, and there is some interest on the Council in the resolution we have offered. For these two important loci of interest to mature and bear fruit, it is important to keep the question of LANL's open-ended, dramatic expansion in front of the Council. 

Please do not look for early, quick, or easy success. Success will come when it comes. We ourselves are part and parcel of the transformation we are seeking -- the foundational part. To achieve certain political goals, we must live and exhibit a certain kind of political, which is to say moral, culture. The responsibility and the struggle are ours, not anybody else's. It is enormously freeing. If we really let our most authentic and truthful voices develop and speak, it will be enough. I will leave this riddle here, for now. 

Except to say that the struggle against militarism and war, which now deform our society and everyone in it, is primarily a moral struggle. Scholar and songwriter William Schryver summarizes, in a short commentary, what von Clausewitz had to say about this moral factor:

Clausewitz insists that “moral forces” (moralische Kräfte) — courage, morale, the spirit of the army, the commander’s resolution, public opinion, the impression of victory or defeat — are among the most important elements in war. They “constitute the spirit that permeates war as a whole” and fuse completely with physical forces; the two cannot be separated “like a metal alloy by a chemical process.” 

Meanwhile, we are hoping that other activist organizations, beyond those who have already spoken, will also see that militarism -- and in New Mexico, nuclear militarism -- is a central barrier in the political transformations they seek. 

Third, you all got two press releases from us on the 19th (here and here). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) issued a press release the same day ("Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility receives approval to begin full-scale construction,", Oct 19, 2026). Linked there is a short recent video of construction at SRPPF, which is recommended. Folks in New Mexico may not understand the reality or the scale of the pit factory construction underway at the 310 square mile Savannah River Site (SRS). It is 6 miles from this project to the site boundary, not 0.6 miles to houses as is the case at LANL. 

We keep tabs on that project on this web page. FWIW, here is a trade press article that followed, quoting us ("NNSA sets $23.5 billion baseline for SRPPF main building, Exchange Monitor, Oct 21, 2026).

NNSA's announcement last week is a big deal. Preliminary design of the entire SRS pit factory is done; construction on all aspects can now begin; and if memory serves (I would need to review some recordings to be sure) contracts for all the specialized gloveboxes have been let. 

People in New Mexico should now be asking, "With construction of this facility now launched, why is LANL turning itself inside out to make another pit factory, and that temporary?" 

Fourth, some quick background facts. 

We now know that the circa $64 billion (B) total acquisition cost for the two pit factories is the largest warhead-related project in the nation's history, in constant dollars. 

It is bigger than the entire spending history of the Manhattan Project and about equal to the total Manhattan Project plus total Atomic Energy Commission spending through 1947 (Atomic Audit, Schwartz et. al., p. 63). 

We estimate the LANL pit factory acquisition cost at $32 B through 2034 ($14 B of which has already been spent). This "$32 B" is $15 B in CPI-corrected 1996 dollars, or about 18 times the total Manhattan project cost at Los Alamos ($845 million in 1996 dollars; op. cit. p. 60). This shocking cost is testimony not so much to pit production's actual scale on the ground but to the relative inefficiency of construction and operations today, which are highly wasteful and in this case, duplicative. 

It is also the most expensive capital acquisition by far in New Mexico history, in inflation-corrected dollars. Poor New Mexico, that is defined by this kind of investment. 

The $14 billion spent so far on the pit production program and its related construction since 2005 would have created considerable economic development in the region, if this were an investment in infrastructure, education, or in useful civilian goods and services. 

We do not see that economic development -- not so far and in our judgement, not ever. We see competition for limited housing and some level of cost increases in that market, and we also see congestion in the markets for available labor, health care, and in road capacity. We see inequality. This kind of investment creates a lack of affordability more than it does greater prosperity. 

There is much more to say but we should save it for a Bulletin we send to our widest email list. 

Thank you for your attention. We hope to see some of you on Wednesday,

Greg Mello, for the Study Group

PS: Our intern Madison Figueroa brought the timeless wisdom of The Lorax to our attention yesterday: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

Permalink for this letter; prior activist letters.