CCNS Update

Earlier this week the U.S. Forest Service admitted that it has limited authority and

oversight of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s proposed Electrical Power Capacity

Upgrade Project, or EPCU, that would transmit 173 megawatts of energy across sacred

National Forest System lands. The admission made in its 35-page Response to

Comments document to complete its role in the environmental assessment process.

More than two years after the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National

Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) sought public input about the scope of a site-

wide environmental impact statement (SWEIS) for Los Alamos National Laboratory

(LANL) operations, a draft LANL SWEIS will be released for a 60-day public review and

comment period on Friday, January 10th. Public hearings will be held during the week

of February 10th. The public comment period ends on March 11th.

The New Mexico Environment Department’s hazardous waste permit for the

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) requires the Department of Energy (DOE) to submit

a Legacy Transuranic, or TRU, Waste Disposal Plan to the Environment Department.

DOE submitted its inadequate Plan on November 4 th for a 60-day public comment

period, which ends on Friday, January 3 rd , 2025. A sample public comment letter you

can use is available at our website at nuclearactive.org

A new condition in the New Mexico Environment Department’s hazardous waste

permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) requires the Department of Energy

(DOE) to submit a Legacy Transuranic Waste Disposal Plan to the Environment

Department. DOE submitted its Plan on November 4 th , 2024 for a 60-day public

comment period.

There is a unique opportunity to provide your comments about the Waste

Isolation Pilot Plant’s Legacy Transuranic Waste Disposal Plan. The disposal plan

describes WIPP’s strategies to keep the disposal site for plutonium-contaminated

hazardous wastes open for 60 more years, despite WIPP’s promises to New Mexicans

to close in 2024.

On Friday, November 1st, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)

adopted Resolution LV-24-061 opposing the proposed Electrical Power Capacity

Upgrade Project “bisecting the Caja del Rio, highlighting the adverse impacts on Tribal

cultural resources and sacred sites” to construct and operate a 115 kilovolt-

transmission line to operate Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) supercomputers.

The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to the Japanese non-governmental

organization, Nihon Hidankyo, for its 68-years of education and advocacy. The Nobel

Peace Prize Committee recognized Nihon Hidankyo “for its efforts to achieve a world

free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear

weapons must never be used again.” Nihon Hidankyo is the Japanese Confederation

of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization.

In an embarrassing turn of events, independent scientists Bernd Franke and Dr. Arjun Makhijani have provided Tewa Women United and the public with the analyses that the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Environmental Protection Agency would not – that the four flanged waste tritium containers may not need to be vented because they may not contain explosive materials. DOE, NNSA and LANL did not follow the regulations to determine whether the venting was necessary and EPA, as a regulatory agency, did not either. Community members downwind and downstream of the proposed venting have been traumatized by four years of maybe yes, maybe no, mixed DOE messages.

On Monday, Tewa Women United released two independent scientific reports

about the harm that would be done to public health and the environment should Los

Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) be allowed to vent radioactive tritium from four

Flanged Tritium Waste Containers stored at LANL’s Area G radioactive and hazardous

waste dump. It is another important step taken by Tewa Women United to hold LANL

and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accountable to the law.

For the first time since the end of the Cold War in 1989 and with the increasing

threat of nuclear war, early this month the First Committee on International Peace and

Security of the United Nations passed a resolution to study the impacts of nuclear war

for the first time in 35 years. In support of the study were 144 countries, France, the

Russian Federation and the United Kingdom voted no. Thirty countries abstained,

including the United States.