The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the sub-autonomous agency under the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), has refused to conduct a public hearing whereby Albuquerque residents could comment on a plan proposed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The NNSA/DOE plan is to increase production of nuclear bombs through expanded plutonium “pit” production.

The vehicle for that plan is a LANL “Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement” (SWEIS), now under consideration. A “pit” is a softball-sized plutonium sphere that acts as the “trigger” in today’s thermonuclear weapons.

In a response to Senator Jeff Bingaman’s request for a hearing in Albuquerque, NNSA rejected a public hearing for Albuquerqueans. Instead, based on comments already received for the LANL SWEIS, NNSA’s Los Alamos Site Manager Ed Wilmot indicated that a public hearing for a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) for a program called “Complex 2030 Transformation” would be “recommended strongly” for Albuquerque. A PEIS is an environmental impact statement used for joint actions or a broad program that may involve connected actions.

The Complex 2030 Transformation involves future changes to the current stockpiles of nuclear warheads and the infrastructure in order to build a new generation of nuclear weapons under a new program dubbed the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). This program would primarily involve Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories.

Citizen Action’s Dave McCoy responded, , “It is illogical for NNSA to deny requests for a public hearing in Albuquerque for pit production at LANL on the basis that NNSA will conduct a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) in the near future for the Complex 2030 Transformation. Public hearings that may be held in the future for Complex 2030 Transformation are not a proper legal substitute for public hearings on the proposed increase in pit production. Increased pit operations at LANL have the potential to affect human health and the environment, and communities as far away as Albuquerque.”

Los Alamos could well be on the road to becoming a future plutonium production center by default. The Complex 2030 Transformation proposes a future consolidated plutonium production center that would manufacture the new nuclear weapons designs of the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories. This begs the question of why do a Draft LANL SWEIS before a Complex 2030 Transformation PEIS?

The availability of an increased number of the nuclear triggers or pits would be necessary for the resumption of the production of new nuclear weapons under the RRW program.

Pits were previously made at the Rocky Flats plant near Denver, Colorado. The plant was shut down in 1989 following an FBI raid investigating environmental crimes. Despite extensive efforts to clean up Rocky Flats, the land remains contaminated with plutonium, workers are still seeking compensation for cancers and other occupational illnesses, and residential development at the site is prohibited.

There is a discrepancy of approximately 300 kilograms of plutonium between two accounting systems at LANL. Therefore, it is questionable whether LANL has demonstrated the necessary levels of safeguards and security to begin increased production of the plutonium “pits” for a new generation of nuclear weapons.

The DOE/NNSA refused to host a public hearing in Albuquerque on the LANL pit production despite letters sent to the DOE/NNSA from Senator Jeff Bingaman, Congressman Tom Udall, New Mexico State Attorney General Patricia Madrid, Albuquerque City Council President Martin Heinrich, and New Mexico State Land Commission candidate Jim Baca. Citizen groups and residents from Albuquerque and other areas in New Mexico also sent letters to the DOE/NNSA requesting the Albuquerque hearing.

The editorial boards of both the Albuquerque Tribune and Albuquerque Journal supported a public hearing in Albuquerque. The Tribune went further in its recommendation that hearings not only be conducted in Albuquerque, but at locations across the entire State of New Mexico as well as at cities across the nation that host nuclear weapons facilities.

Citizen Action is a project of the New Mexico Community Foundation and a member of the New Mexicans for Sustainable Energy and Effective Stewardship (NMSEES). For more information contact Dave McCoy, Citizen Action, at: 262-1862 or Dave McCoy, Director: dave@radfreenm.org.