CCNS Update

In the face of continuing problems and escalating costs for expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores for nuclear weapons, U.S.

Congressman John Garamendi, of California, has offered a common sense amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 

plutonium pit accountability.

Holtec International recently purchased two shutdown nuclear power plants in Michigan to create a supply chain of spent fuel rods for its proposed consolidated interim storage facility in southeastern New Mexico’s Permian Basin. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff is expected to issue a Final Environmental Impact Statement this month and an operating license in early 2023 for the proposed “temporary” storage facility for spent nuclear fuel.

Did you know that the Department of Energy (DOE) plans to continue disposing of plutonium-contaminated radioactive and hazardous waste in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) essentially forever? In filings submitted to the New Mexico Environment Department on Monday, DOE stated, “[the] final facility closure could begin no earlier than [Calendar Year] 2083.”

This week before the start of the First Meeting of States Parties for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Vienna, three countries

deposited their ratification documents with the United Nations. Grenada, Cabot Verde, and Timor Leste joined 62 countries to ratify the treaty, 

for a total of 65. One-third of the world’s 195 countries have now ratified the Treaty.

If you were in charge of allocating U.S. taxpayer money, would you invest $84,094 [dollars] per minute for nuclear weapons? What would your priorities be?

While you may not be able to travel to Vienna, Austria for the First Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, you can sign the online Statement on the Existential Threat of Nuclear Weapons. 

Decisions being made by federal and state agencies about the plutonium-contaminated waste stored at the Waste Control Specialists facility located on the Texas-New Mexico border may foreshadow how non-compliant waste may be stranded in the future.

In November 2021, Los Alamos National Laboratory applied to the Environmental Protection Agency to begin construction of a new radioactive

liquid waste treatment facility for transuranic, or plutonium contaminated, liquid waste from the Plutonium Facility.

Plutonium operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory's Technical Area 55 are centered in the middle of the 36 square mile national nuclear weapons facility.

Recently released Biden Administration budget documents reveal that for Fiscal Year 2023, beginning on October 1st, the Administration is proposing a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) budget of $4.6 billion, an overall increase o 21 percent.