CCNS Update

What would happen to the fields of amber waves of grain in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota that feed so many, as well as the area’s population, should a concerted nuclear attack occur in those same fields housing silos of intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs?

From Monday, November 27 th to Friday, December 1 st , the States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will meet at the United Nations in New York to review progress on the treaty’s implementation and agree on further action to strengthen it. This will be the second meeting of the States Parties.

Over one hundred years ago, in 1918, the world celebrated peace as a universal principle. The first World War had just ended and nations mourning their dead collectively called for an end to all wars. Armistice Day was born and was designated as "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated.”

Please join the effort to submit public comments in support of the excavation of a 12-acre unlined dump at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Public comments are due to the New Mexico Environment Department by Monday, November 6 th at 5 pm Mountain Time.

Holtec International, a corporation with a license for a consolidated interim storage facility in southeastern New Mexico for 173,600 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel from atomic power plants, submitted a secret application to the Department of Energy seeking at least $2 billion dollars to restart Palisades, a closed nuclear reactor in Michigan. Holtec’s request also includes plans to build small nuclear modular reactors, or SMRs, with electric generation capacity of 160 Megawatts, on site.

There are two measurements the Department of Energy (DOE) uses for the waste shipped for disposal in the deep underground repository at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), located 26 miles east of Carlsbad, New Mexico. The first measurement is the most important, which is the volume of waste measured in cubic meters. A cubic meter fits into a cube measuring 39 inches in width, depth and height. The second measurement is the number of waste shipments.

Increasing numbers of workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory

have tested positive for radiation exposure both at LANL and on

foreign soils.

Six employees and the equipment they used tested positive for

exposures to radioactive Iodine-125 following official foreign travel to an unknown location in March.

They traveled on commercial airlines and in personal vehicles.

The comment period is open for the public to review the New

Mexico Environment Department’s recommendation to excavate

the 11.8 acre unlined dump, called Material Disposal Area C, or MDA

C, at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Public comments are

due Monday, November 6 th .

On Wednesday, September 19 th , the landmark Treaty on the

Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons had been signed by almost half of

all countries in the world after a ceremony at the United Nations

General Assembly in New York where Sri Lanka acceded to the

Treaty and the Bahamas signed it.

Friday, September 22 nd will be the last opportunity to make your public

comments about the changes to the operating permit for the nuclear

waste dump, called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP. WIPP is a

deep geologic repository for plutonium- contaminated radioactive waste

from the production of nuclear weapons, located 26 miles east of

Carlsbad, New Mexico.