CCNS Update

CCNS and five other non-governmental organizations and one individual

successfully negotiated a settlement agreement last week to revise the draft ten-year

hazardous waste renewal permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). Also at the

table were the New Mexico Environment Department and the co-Permittees, the U.S.

Department of Energy (DOE) and Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, LLC (SIMCO).

Each week you depend on CCNS to provide you with the latest nuclear safety

issues through the radio, on the internet and by email. We’ve been producing the

weekly CCNS News Update for over 35 years! We need your financial support to keep

our programs going.

Los Alamos National Laboratory plans to prepare an environmental assessment

to address the hexavalent chromium contamination in the deep regional drinking water

aquifer. In comments submitted this week, the Communities for Clean Water

recommended that LANL conduct a more detailed environmental impact statement in

order to protect the regional drinking water aquifer and the Environmental Protection

Agency-designated Española Basin Sole Source Aquifer from the migrating

contamination.

You are invited to join the Ohio Nuclear Free Network for its important virtual public forum, Radioactive Contamination, Environment and Public Health and the

Future of the Portsmouth Nuclear Site, on Saturday, June 10 th beginning at 10:45 am Mountain Time. The in-person and virtual forum offers an opportunity to

learn from world-renowned experts about contamination at the Piketon, Ohio site and at

Department of Energy (DOE) sites across the country.

CCNS has prepared sample public comments you can modify about the scope of a new draft site-wide environmental impact statement for Sandia National

Laboratories in New Mexico. Comments may be submitted electronically to SNL-

[email protected] through Monday, June 5 th , 2023.

In response to the lack of concrete progress on nuclear disarmament by the G7

leaders in Hiroshima last week, Ivana Nikolić Hughes, Ph.D., and President of the

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, wrote the following op-ed in Common Dreams. We

provide excerpts:

On May 15 th , four Archbishops, including Archbishop John C. Wester of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, sent a letter to the Group of Seven leaders gathering for

a three-day summit in Hiroshima, Japan to urge the leaders to take concrete steps toward nuclear disarmament.

The New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission not only denied Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE) and CCNS standing to challenge the groundwater

discharge permit DP-1132, but also denied the public any opportunity to provide comment during

Tuesday’s hearing.

The health of the Rio Grande watershed in the area of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is at stake. The protection of the 3,000 square mile sole source

drinking water aquifer is at stake. LANL has contaminated it with hexavalent chromium and the plume is migrating towards the Pueblo de San Ildefonso, the Rio

Grande, and the Buckman wells and diversion facility. Every drop of water is precious and must be free from contamination. Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE)

and CCNS work to ensure that every drop is protected.

Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE) and CCNS will be before the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission on Tuesday, May 9 th at the New Mexico

State Capitol to argue that they have standing to challenge the groundwater discharge permit, DP-1132, for the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility at

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The Hearing Officer, who reports to the Commission, recommended to the Commission that the non-governmental

organizations do not have standing.